David Livingstone – The early years of this great explorer
Born on March 19, 1813 in the small town of Blantyre in Lanarkshire, David Livingstone was to live his life for others, his own contentment and satisfaction was selflessly sacrificed to encourage others less incapable of overcoming adversity than himself. He was born to Neil Livingstone, an impoverished tea merchant. He was trained to read and write by his father. When David was 10 he went to work in the Blantyre cotton mill, his task was to watch a cotton spinning frame and fasten any threads that broke.
David desired to understand more and self studied whenever he could. He soon began to be developed at nights after work, provided by the mill. He taught himself Latin and nurtured a love of natural history. He was also strong physically, he loved to tramp for miles and miles all over the land. He grew up strong and with great energy. Little did he realise that he was inadvertently preparing for his life’s work, and to be immortally remembered in history as the man that discovered the Victoria Falls.
At eighteen he was promoted to the capacity of spinner at the mill, thus earning much better compensation. He hoarded his money for university. He was driven to study to a doctor and a missionary. He had read about a doctor missionary in China and hoped that he too could go to China and be like that man. He was accepted at the university in Glascow, Scotland. He wrote a letter to the London Missionary Society offering himself as a missionary to China while he was still studying at the University. He was confirmed on the condition that he went through an instruction course at a school in Chipping Ongar in Essex near London, England. He interrupted his course and accomplished a year at the mission society. During the time he was at the little school he met a man named Robert Moffat who was to give him his life’s vision. Robert Moffat had just returned from Africa with stories that fuelled the heart of David, of a mysterious continent with the “vast plain to the north” and the “smoke of a thousand villages” where no missionary had ever been in the past.
He moved to London in 1940 to carry through his studies at the British and Foreign medical school, the Aldarsgate Street Dispensary, Charing Cross Hospital and Moorsfeild Hospital and at the closing of the year he qualified as a licentiate of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glascow. That aforementioned year he was also ordained a missionary by the London Missionary Society.
For additional data on Victoria Falls or David Livingstone, visit http://www.livingstonesadventure.com. This is part 1 in a four part series of articles about David Livingstone to be found on this website.
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