Henry Morton Stanley

Sir
Henry Morton Stanley
Born
John Rowlands

(1841-01-28)28 January 1841
Denbigh, Wales
Died10 May 1904(1904-05-10) (aged 63)
Westminster, London, England
Burial placePirbright, Surrey, England
Citizenship
  • United Kingdom
  • United States (from 1885)
Political partyLiberal Unionist
Spouse
(m. 1890)
AwardsVega Medal (1883)
Member of Parliament
for Lambeth North
In office
15 July 1895 – 17 September 1900
Preceded byFrancis Coldwells
Succeeded byFrederick William Horner
Military service
Allegiance
Service/branch
Years of service
  • 1861–1862
  • 1864–1865
Rank
  • Private
  • Ship's clerk
Unit
Battles/wars
Signature

Sir Henry Morton Stanley GCB (born John Rowlands; 28 January 1841 – 10 May 1904) was a Welsh-American[1][2][a] explorer, journalist, soldier, colonial administrator, author and politician who was famous for his exploration of Central Africa and his search for missionary and explorer David Livingstone. Besides his discovery of Livingstone, he is mainly known for his search for the sources of the Nile and Congo rivers, the work he undertook as an agent of King Leopold II of the Belgians which enabled the occupation of the Congo Basin region, and his command of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. He was knighted in 1897, and served in Parliament as a Liberal Unionist member for Lambeth North from 1895 to 1900.

More than a century after his death, Stanley's legacy remains the subject of enduring controversy. Although he personally had high regard for many of the native African people who accompanied him on his expeditions,[3]: 10–11  the exaggerated accounts of corporal punishment and brutality in his books fostered a public reputation as a hard-driving, cruel leader,[3]: 201–202  in contrast to the supposedly more humanitarian Livingstone.[3]: 472  His contemporary image in Britain also suffered from the inaccurate perception that he was American. In the 20th century, his reputation was also seriously damaged by his role in establishing the Congo Free State for King Leopold II.[4][3]: 7  Nevertheless, he is recognised for his important contributions to Western knowledge of the geography of Central Africa and for his resolute opposition to the slave trade in East Africa.[3]: 16, 474 

  1. ^ "Henry Stanley (1841–1904)". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
  2. ^ "Sir Henry Morton Stanley". britannica.com. Retrieved 21 October 2016.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Cite error: The named reference jeal2007 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Rushby, Kevin (24 March 2007). "A plinth for the fallen idol". The Guardian. And in recent times, Stanley's reputation has only fallen further. Both Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost (1998) and Frank McLynn's two-volume biography (1989 and 1991) exposed the hard-hearted monster to pitiless scrutiny. Treaties made between Brussels and illiterate chiefs show Stanley as the architect of a shoddy robbery: vast swaths of Congo exchanged for bolts of cheap cloth and bottles of gin.


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