Henry Morton Stanley

He died in London on 10 May 1904.

Henry Stanley was born to an unwed 18 year old girl, Elizabeth Parry, on 28 January 1841 in Denbigh, Wales, UK. His mother abandoned him when he was very young and left him at the mercy of relatives. His biological father was believed to be a man called John Rowlands, and the boy was named after him.

Little John was initially cared for by his maternal grandfather who died when the boy was about five. After living with relatives for a while, he was sent to the St Asaph Union Workhouse for the Poor. There he was often abused by the older boys.

He completed his elementary education at the age of 15 and left the workhouse. The stigma of illegitimacy, the insecurity of being abandoned by his mother, and the atrocities he suffered at the workhouse would continue to haunt him for long.

As a teenager he craved for adventure and wanted to build a new life for himself. He found work as a cabin boy on a ship and sailed to the United States in 1859 as an 18 year old.

He reached New Orleans and immediately started looking for a job. A chance meeting with a wealthy trader named Henry Hope Stanley led to a job. Over a period of time he developed a close relationship with his childless employer and his wife who began treating him as a son. Out of love and admiration for his employer, John Rowlands adopted the name of “Henry Stanley”.

In 1862, he served in the American Civil War as a soldier and fought in the Battle of Shiloh. Later on he served on several merchant ships before joining the Navy in 1864. On board the ship ‘Minnesota’ he worked as a record keeper which kindled in him an interest in journalism.

Soon, he embarked on a career as a journalist, and in 1867, Stanley became special correspondent for the ‘New York Herald’. He proved to be quite successful in this field and James Gordon Bennett, founder of the New York Herald, was quite impressed by the young man’s journalistic skills.

In 1869, the ‘New York Herald’ assigned Stanley on a mission to search for the Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone, who was known to be in Africa but was reported missing. Livingstone was a very famous personality and any news about him would have helped in selling newspapers.

Henry Stanley is best remembered as the explorer who found the missing David Livingstone after an extremely difficult expedition through the uninhabitable terrains of central Africa. He uttered the words "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" upon meeting the Scottish missionary and explorer near Lake Tanganyika as he was the only white man present there.