Visit Blantyre Scotland

Visit Blantyre, Scotland. Blantyre is a small town in south Lanarkshire, eight miles from Glasgow. It is best known as the birthplace of David Livingstone.

David Livingstone (1813-1873) was one of the supreme representatives of the British Empire. Yet his career suffered many setbacks during his own lifetime, and since his death his reputation has swung between extremes of adulation and dismissal. Were his epic journeys through Africa purely to save souls and counter the slave trade? Or were they the first steps towards bringing the peoples of Central Africa under the control of Europeans who would destroy their values and exploit them economically? Beyond these questions, there lies the puzzle of Livingstone's own character and its contradictions. Livingstone's career was certainly an extraordinary one. Born in poverty in Blantyre, Scotland, he educated himself by heroic endeavor, later proving him-self to be a remarkable linguist and scientist. His missionary journeys brought him into contact with a wide range of African peoples, for whom he showed remarkable sympathy. David Livingstone: Mission and Empire is a scholarly and readable account of Livingstone's life and of his achievements. David Livingstone: Mission and Empire.

In 1854 David Livingstone was acclaimed a hero for his discovery of the Victoria Falls. He had been able to map much of central Africa's waterways, but his later journeys appeared to be failures, although they provided the western world with vivid descriptions of the hitherto unknown interior of Africa. In 1871 the "New York Herald" sent one of its journalists, Henry Stanley, to find him, leading to one of the most famous meetings in exploration history. This biography provides an account of Livingstone's life, from his humble beginnings in Blantyre, Scotland, and his struggle to gain medical qualifications, to his employment with the London Missionary Society and his search for the source of the Nile. David Livingstone (Pocket Biographies).