Who Was David Livingstone?

David Livingstone (1813-1873) was a Scottish missionary who devoted his life to exploring Africa and presumably saving some souls en route.  He went to Africa at the age of 28, in 1841 with his wife and children.  However they fell ill whilst travelling the upper Zambezi in 1850 and went back to Britain.  
Livingstone carried on alone exploring Loanda and he found the source of the Zambezi river in 1856.  He also discovered the famous waterfall which he named after Queen Victoria.
From 1866 onwards he set out to try and find the source of the Nile.  Henry Stanley, a British explorer had been encouraged to find Livingstone, whom people feared was dead.  Stanley tracked Livingstone down in 1871 and uttered the immortal words, 'Dr Livingstone I presume'.  The two did some further exploration together, (Livingstone had refused to return to Britain) until Livingstone died of fever in 1873.

David Livingstone was born in 1813 at Blantyre, in Scotland. At the age often he started work in a cotton mill, and with his first earnings bought a Latin primer. Although his work was arduous, he attended night school and studied at home. When he was 20 years old, he was thrilled by reading an account of a missionary's labors in Asia, and resolved to devote his life to the alleviation of human misery. Then he followed college classes in Glasgow, examination and acceptance by the London Missionary Society, and then
completion of his medical studies in London. He also studied theology, botany, zoology, and astronomy all with his future life-work in mind.

In 1841, he arrived at Cape Town, and for thirty years Dr. Livingstone travelled all over Africa. He discovered the mighty Victoria Falls and the upper course of the Zaire (the Congo), among other things.His meager salary and money from his books all went to equip and finance new expeditions. During the last fifteen years of his life he held a roving commission from the British Government as Consul.

His last expedition ran into trouble. He was weakened by fever, and some of his native carriers deserted with supplies and his precious medicine chest. A relief expedition sent by the New York Herald, under the command of H. M. Stanley, found him at Ujiji. Stanley tried to persuade Dr. Livingstone to return to civilization, but he refused and set out westward lo seek the sources of the Nile.

Dysentery, with complications, attacked him and he grew steadily worse, until, on the morning of May 1st, 1873, he died. His faithful native attendants preserved his body as well as they could and carried it halfway across Africa. His body was taken to England, where it was buried at Westminster Abbey.