Dr. Livingstone, I Presume? The Victorian Explorer at 200

From The Daily Beast-

Two hundred years ago today, in a decaying Scottish tenement, a man was born who would become a unique British hero, venerated more for his “goodness” than for his deeds. Sixty years later, people wept inside Westminster Abbey where the Prime Minister and the Prince of Wales were mourners at his state funeral. David Livingstone had been a missionary—not just an explorer—and was said to have died in prayer in an African swamp, worn out by his efforts to bring Christianity to Africa. The powerful myth that grew up around his name would inspire later imperialists with the comforting notion that the colonial occupation of Africa was an altruistic civilizing mission more than a quest for minerals and international dominance.

The real Dr. Livingstone had a darker, more complex personality than his grieving mourners imagined. In childhood, he had overcome his disadvantages by a will so steely that its lifelong legacy was contempt for weaker men. At Age 10 he had been put to work in a cotton mill, crawling under the machines up to 20 miles a day, twisting together fraying threads. Each evening he strove to read and write. With his earnings Livingstone bought books and balanced them on the machinery until other children hurled bobbins. He went on to be ordained a minister and to qualify as a doctor.

More here-

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/19/dr-livingstone-i-presume-the-victorian-explorer-at-200.html