David Livingstone Centre

    David Livingstone Centre. National Trust for Scotland

    Discover more about the intrepid explorer, Dr David Livingstone, at the centre dedicated to his life.

    David Livingstone Centre. National Trust for Scotland
    David Livingstone Centre. National Trust for Scotland

    Born in Blantyre, just south of Glasgow, in 1813, Dr David Livingstone went on to leave a life of poverty to become a famed explorer, missionary and medic who campaigned to bring about the end of slavery in East Africa and who discovered the Victoria Falls during an expedition that saw him become the first European to cross the breadth of southern Africa.

    The birthplace museum of his life and work located in Shuttle Row, a tenement where the Livingstones resided along with 23 other families, now allows visitors to view journals, letters and navigational equipment as well as a wide array of other items and dioramas relating to significant events in Livingstone’s travels and explorations. Don’t miss the red shirt Livingstone was wearing when he met Henry Morton Stanley who uttered the famous words, “Dr Livingstone, I presume?”

    One such event occurred in 1843 when Livingstone decided to tackle and shoot a man-eating lion that was attacking people from the African village where he lived. Livingstone was left with the scars of the lion’s teeth marks for life and never regained the full use of his left arm. ‘Livingstone and the Lion’ has become one of the most famous tales of the explorer’s travels across Africa, and a larger-than-life sculpture by Gareth Knowles depicting the scene has been located at the David Livingstone Centre since 2004.

    The centre itself opened in October 1929 as the Scottish National Memorial to David Livingstone, and it was awarded museum accreditation in 2013.

    www.nts.org.uk

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