America saves England – mighty Child
Of mighty Mother, it is nobly done!
Join your two strong right hands for evermore,
And swear that none shall sever them anew!
The tremble, crowned oppressors of mankind!
England, America, on your free soil
The slave may kneel; but only kneel to God!
Thou, gallant Stanley, scorning toil, alert,
Stern battling with they formidable foes,
Hast won the brilliant prize; and Europe turns
Her enviously grateful eyes on thee.
Roden Noel, ‘Livingstone in Africa’ (extract)
Stanley and Kalulu arrived at Dover on the boat train from Calais on 1 August 1872. Waiting on the dockside pier was Stanley’s half-brother, Robert Parry and a cousin, both tipsy after a few drinks too many in a pub. Stanley had hoped to slip into the country unnoticed, which was not easy when travelling in the company of an eight-year-old African boy unhappy at wearing trousers, boots and socks for the first time. Not only were his relatives drawing attention to themselves with their drunken antics, but also to Stanley and Kalulu.
The half-brother and cousin insisted on sharing their famous relative’s railway carriage back to London, where their drunken activities continued to annoy and embarrass Stanley and confuse Kalulu. At Victoria Station, the Foreign Secretary, Lord Granville, had sent a carriage to collect Stanley and take him to the Langham Hotel. He bade farewell to his relatives on the platform and they staggered off to the nearest pub.
Later that night Stanley recorded in his journal:
What a welcome! Had those stupid newspapers not mentioned my name, the vanity of my poor relations would not have been so kindled. Thus has my presentiment been realised on my first setting foot in England. They had already, of course, gained considerable éclat on the pier by their revelation of their relationship with me and a large crowd of quidnuncs, railway porters and others assembled to witness our meeting. I have never felt so ashamed, and would have given all I was worth to have been back in Central Africa. What little Kalulu must have thought of my drunken relatives I do not know. There is no reason in the world why I should recognise them in public. They only bring to my mind too vividly my treatment, when I deserved something else than the scorn they gave me as a child, and any charity that they might have shown me then, might today have been remembered and returned with interest.
A journalist from the Scotsman called on Stanley at the Langham on 2 August 1872, and attempted to interview him:
I had intended to see Mr. Stanley yesterday; but as he had to attend to an invitation to breakfast in the morning and an invitation to dinner in the evening, I did not succeed in catching sight of him. Today I called at the house of a mutual friend and there I was fortunate enough to meet Mr. Stanley. But even now I had not fully secured him, for before many minutes he rushed out on some business, telling me he would be glad to see me an hour or two further on in the day. About twelve- o’-clock I was able for the first time to get a few minutes of quiet conversation in a room in the Langham Hotel. Even here, however, we were not left undisturbed for many minutes. Firstly, there were many American acquaintances of Mr. Stanley staying at the hotel, and then the boy Kalulu called for some attention on the part of Mr. Stanley. The housekeeper had presented the lad with a pair of stockings, but he did not relish the gift and it was only by the intervention of Mr. Stanley that he could be induced to don those habiliments.
Much of Stanley’s time in London was spent at the Fetter Lane offices of publishers, Sampson Low, Marston & Company. There he discussed his 700-page manuscript of How I Found Livingstone; Travels, Adventures and Discoveries in Central Africa, including Four Months’ Residence with Dr. Livingstone and illustrations to be included with his text. While Stanley was a proficient amateur pencil artist, he was not a great one and sketches made during his African crossing were handed to professional artist J.D. Cooper to work up into finished wood engravings.
For his return to London, Stanley had trimmed his shaggy beard, leaving just the moustache and a roguish goatee on his chin. A photograph of Stanley wearing a fashionable bow tie was taken by the London Stereoscopic Company and issued as a postcard sold in London shops for 1d. Stanley’s face was now as well known alike to London’s fashionable elite and its street urchins as those of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Henry Irving. As he travelled around the city, strangers tipped their hats and greeted him with a variation of the expression they had all read in his newspaper articles, enquiring: ‘Mr Stanley, I presume?’ He found them amusing at first, then intensely annoying. The phrase dogged Stanley for the rest of his life and there must have been times when he bitterly regretted ever having uttered the now historic remark. Over a century later, the phrase, ‘Dr. Livingstone, I presume?’ even turned up in the lyrics of a 1968 pop song by the Moody Blues.
Accusations that Livingstone’s letters and journals were forgeries were still appearing in London newspapers. The Standard demanded that Stanley’s dispatches be examined word-by-word by experts because ‘we cannot resist some suspicions and misgivings . . . there is something inexplicable and mysterious in the business’. The Spectator said there ‘is something of the comic in the newspaper correspondent who, in the regular exercise of his profession, moved neither by pity, nor love of knowledge, nor by desire of adventure, but by an order from Mr. Bennett, coolly plunges into the unknown continent to interview a lost geographer’.
On his second day in London, Stanley met Tom Livingstone to hand over his father’s journal. Tom then scribbled a note stating his family ‘have not the slightest reason to doubt that this is my father’s journal and I certify that the letters he had brought home are my father’s letters, and no others’. Lord Granville, the Foreign Secretary also wrote to Stanley and circulated a copy of his letter to leading newspapers: ‘I have not the slightest doubt as to the genuineness of the papers’, he wrote. ‘I cannot omit this opportunity of expressing to you my admiration of the qualities which have enabled you to achieve the object of your mission and to attain a result which has been hailed with so much enthusiasm both in the United States and in this country.’
Despite these and other confirmations that Livingstone’s handwritten communications were genuine, Stanley was still bitter that anyone could possibly doubt the word of a reporter from the New York Herald. He felt no better when he read in the 17 August 1872 issue of Punch: ‘There is certainly one claim of immense amount which may be advanced by the United States and is incontestable; the claim of Mr. Stanley to have discovered Dr. Livingstone.’
A flood of inquisitive letters from strangers and early acquaintances began arriving at the Langham Hotel. Many begged for money. Others demanded to know if Stanley was really the American reporter he claimed to be. Mr Charles Ollivant, from Sale, Cheshire, a town close to where both Henry and Frances Stanley originated, wrote enclosing a press clipping from the Rhyl Journal, which claimed Stanley’s real name was either Thomas or Rowlands. The newspaper wrote that Stanley was not American but Welsh-born and that Ollivant ‘was happy to be in a position to give an authoritative denial to the statement, believing it to be utterly devoid of truth and dictated by a spirit of envy and malice’. Ollivant enquired if there was foundation in the story.
Stanley’s reply contained more of the lies he used to cover details about his early life. He sent Mr Ollivant ‘a thousand thanks for his letter and clippings’ and stated that if he were to answer all letters received about his nationality he ‘should certainly be called an idiot, and deservedly so’. He ‘cared not what anybody wrote about me, nor do I intend to notice them. If English and Welsh folks are so gullible as to believe all the “rot” they read about me, I cannot help it; nor have I a desire to help it in any way. But for you and such kind friends I say that I am an American and can prove it with over 10,000 friends in the United States. The letter in the Rhyl Journal is all bosh . . . I have never sung a Welsh song – not knowing anything of the language. My name is neither Thomas nor Rowlands, Smith, Jones nor Robinson, but that which I have borne all my life – plain Henry M. Stanley. At 16 I was in Missouri, at 17 in Arkansas, at 18 in New Orleans, at 19 in Europe travelling, at 20 in the war and so on.’
Stanley chose not to fill in the gaps between his birth date and his sixteenth year, ‘but in the public’s great interest’ Ollivant forwarded copies of his correspondence to the letters page of the Daily Telegraph inviting the newspaper to reproduce them. They did, printing both Ollivant’s letter to Stanley and the reply he had received.
Vanity Fair described Stanley as of
a touchy and combative nature . . . contrived to quarrel with most of those with whom he has been brought into contact, and being a man of plain and blunt speech, he has said various things to which undue importance has been given through their being measured by the English rather than by the American standard of good manners and propriety. He is plucky, has proved himself an admiral newspaper correspondent and will have far more than earned the large sum of money, which he has told us was expended by the New York Herald upon his adventure to Africa. That is less than has been said for him and less than he evidently thinks of himself, but it is about as much as there is to say or to think.
Stanley was still out of humour when Punch printed a cartoon showing Livingstone relaxing in a hammock made from the Stars and Stripes alongside a ‘private and confidential letter from Dr. Livingstone to Dr. Punch’ saying that ‘Stanley is an excellent fellow, a real good plucked ’un, and you are to make much of him, while he’s with you, for his own sake as well as mine’.
While the worthies of the Royal Geographical Society continued to ignore the American who had found their man in Africa, its members demanded that a platform be made available for him to relate his story. The Society President, Sir Henry Rawlinson, was forced to write to Stanley sending ‘our best thanks for the transmission of direct intelligence from Dr. Livingstone to several members of the Council of this society. This was the very earliest opportunity at which it was possible to convey their thanks, as the letters in question did not reach their destination until the end of last week. I take this opportunity of begging you, in the name of the committee, to accept our most cordial acknowledgements for the timely succour rendered to Dr. Livingstone in his great need and the expression of our admiration of the energy, perseverance and courage with which you conducted your expedition.’ The letter invited Stanley to address a meeting in Brighton of the geographical section of the British Association on 18 August 1872, at which he was called on to present an account of his visit to Lake Tanganyika with Livingstone and the ‘new route from Unyanyembe to Ujiji’. It would be followed by readings of extracts from Livingstone’s journal. Around ‘1,500 distinguished persons’ were expected to attend and although Stanley had never before addressed such a large and formal gathering of academic and intellectual geographers, he accepted the invitation and set about drafting a speech.
On 18 August, 3,000 people attempted to push their way through the doors of the Brighton Concert Hall in Middle Street when they opened at 9 a.m. Proceedings were not scheduled to begin for another two hours. The conference was a ‘ticket only’ affair, but once word got out that Stanley would be making a personal appearance, people who had never before been to a stuffy geographical meeting began to demand admission, including Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie of France, now living in comfortable exile in southern England, MPs, lords, ladies, military officials, geographers and Victorian society celebrity spotters. The media was out in force, too. For many this was their first opportunity to hear Stanley speak on the record, even if it was only about exploring an obscure lake thousands of miles away from Brighton.
The Daily News reported that the audience expressed its ‘vociferous welcome, the Emperor and Empress applauding as heartily as the rest, causing Mr. Stanley to rise more than once to bow his acknowledgements’. The paper observed that ‘determination and pluck are written upon the young traveller’s face in characters which are unmistakeable, and if ever a man “looked the part” he has been called upon to play, it is the intrepid discoverer of Livingstone’.
The Brighton Herald provided readers with a unique word sketch of Stanley that day. In just a few sentences, the article managed to describe the appearance, voice, excuses and lies used by the man deliberately to mislead anyone prying too closely into his humble origins:
He is what we in England would call a short man, rather under than over five feet six inches. He is thick set and sturdy in make, conveying the idea that he possesses great powers of endurance; and his features, though not otherwise remarkable, have an air of great resolution. He is of dark complexion, wearing a small moustache, an imperial, and though stated to be only 28 years of age [Stanley was, in fact, thirty-one], his hair is here and there turning grey. He has not the look of a Yankee, as we in England understand that look, nor does he speak with an American accent – not, at least, in ordinary conversation, though, when he warms, there is the unmistakable twang. The report that Mr. Stanley is an Englishman is unfounded. He is a native of one of the native states of the American Union, Missouri, and his father (as he himself informed us) was an American by birth, although, he added, ‘my mother was an Englishwoman’. But to his distinction of birth between Englishmen and Americans, he seemed to attach very little importance, and expressed his wonder that people should trouble themselves about the matter. ‘We all spring,’ he remarked to us, ‘from the same source.’
Sir Henry Rawlinson invited Stanley up onto the platform and the auditorium erupted to its feet, clapping and calling his name. Stanley was not prepared for this. He had expected polite applause – not a standing ovation. The applause lasted a full two minutes and Stanley allowed the audience to regain its composure before starting his speech. The Daily News said his address was ‘triumphal’ and the Daily Telegraph described him speaking ‘with entire self-possession, composure, with a natural and effective oratory . . . with the evident purpose to speak his mind to everybody, without the slightest deference or hesitation’.
They were being kind. Stanley recorded in his journal that his stage fright was so extreme that it took him three attempts to begin speaking. When he was finally able to stammer out his words, he told the audience that he had been asked to present a brief paper dealing with exploration of the northern end of Lake Tanganyika – but at the last minute was called on to give an account of the whole expedition. The audience was delighted.
Without notes, Stanley launched into his story:
Ladies and gentlemen, I consider myself in the light of a troubadour, to relate to you the tale of an old man who is tramping onward to discover the source of the Nile – to tell you that I found that old man at Ujiji and to tell you of his woes and sufferings and how he bore his misfortunes with the Christian patience and endurance of a hero. . . .
He told the audience that, prior to being summoned to James Gordon Bennett’s hotel room in Paris and instructed to ‘Find Livingstone!’ he knew nothing about Africa. Stanley admitted he had no idea where or how to begin his search after arriving in Zanzibar and how he relied on information in books by other explorers. He spoke about borrowing cash to put his caravan together, fit it out with supplies, of his men, their journey together, the trials and hardships of tramping through hostile territory and bits of information picked up along the way about an old white man at Ujiji. He described entering the settlement and seeing a ‘grey bearded old man, dressed in a red shirt, with a gold band around his cap, an old tweed pair of pants, his shoes looking the worse for wear. Who is this old man, I ask myself. Is it Livingstone? Yes it is. No, it is not. Yes it is. “Dr Livingstone, I presume?” “Yes.”’ The audience erupted into loud cheers again. Hundreds in the audience repeated the famous phrase along with Stanley – the phrase he had given to the world.
All thoughts about lies, forgeries and falsehoods were now forgotten as Stanley steered his talk towards the point where he joined Livingstone on their ‘little picnic’ to the northern end of the Tanganyika. At this point Stanley picked up the formal text he had prepared a few days before. There were questions from eminent geographers in the audience and Stanley answered them in detail before taking his seat again. His appearance was a triumph.
It was now the turn of the Royal Geographical Society to eat humble pie in front of an audience of eminent geographers. Sir Henry Rawlinson mildly rebuked Stanley for the ‘sensational’ style of his retelling of the story of his discovery to his learned audience and called on both Livingstone and Stanley to produce ‘hard facts’ about their geographic claims. Having got that out of the way, Sir Henry then expressed his organisation’s high opinion of Stanley’s merits as a traveller ‘and that his achievement in finding Livingstone reflected the greatest credit upon the country with which you are connected. As there have been some misconceptions on the subject, I take this opportunity of disclaiming on the part of the Royal Geographical Society, the slightest feeling of jealousy.’
The Daily News reported that ‘Mr. Stanley is essentially a man for a platform and a popular assembly and if he could be induced to deliver a lecture and illustrate it with drawings, diagrams and maps he will furnish the public with an extremely attractive and instructive entertainment. Meanwhile people are asking what public honour is to be paid to him and when it will be announced. His achievement is not one which England can pass by, and some mark of recognition by the government would never seem more grateful than now. . . .’
Things turned sour the following evening when Stanley was a guest at a Royal Pavilion banquet given by the Brighton and Sussex Medi-Chirurgical Society in honour of the British Association’s visit to the town. At midnight and following a convivial dinner at which wine, champagne and liqueurs had flowed freely, Stanley was called upon to respond to a toast ‘to the visitors’. The toast was proposed by Mr Jardine Murray, who expressed ‘deep regret that the rise of Mr. Stanley should have been the fall of Dr. Kirk’, a gentleman whom he greatly respected and had been an old college friend. On rising to return the thanks, Stanley was greeted with warm applause and began speaking in what, according to the Brighton Daily News, was
a most humorous vein, asserting that for the life of him he could not make out why he had been selected to respond, as they had doubtless heard enough of him the day before. However, he accepted the compliment as a token that they would like to hear some words regarding their great and illustrious associate (cheers and applause). Mr. Stanley then went on to point out there were few medical men who had had such a wide range of practical experience in the healing art as Dr. Livingstone, who had to deal with a number of strange and incongruous patients, giving pills to the natives of one district, potions, plaisters and ointment to others.
At this point, according to the newspaper, a member of the audience
gave utterance to what Mr. Stanley apparently regarded as a derisive laugh, either at something he had said or his manner of saying it. This appeared to annoy Mr. Stanley exceedingly; and at once, quitting the humorous and cheerful style in which he had been speaking, he adopted a stern, emphatic and impassioned tone; protesting that he had not come there to be laughed at, and that he had had quite enough gratuitous sneering of late, without their adding to it. Alluding to the insinuations which had been made against him at the meeting of the Geographical Section on the previous day, that he indulged rather too much in ‘sensationalism’, he assured them that it was not to get the thanks of England or the English people that he had gone out to discover Livingstone, but as a matter of professional duty. They might call it what they liked; but if the finding of Livingstone in the heart of Africa after he had been given up for lost had not something of the ‘sensational’ then he did not know the meaning of the word. But why was it that his statements were questioned?
The Royal Pavilion fell silent, as Stanley sternly demanded: ‘Is it because I am an American that you reward me with gratuitous sneering? Do you think that America would have enquired after the nationality of the man who might have prevented the assassination of President Lincoln before thanking him for the act? Why, then, should I be sneered at because I succeeded in discovering Livingstone? If that was to be the way in which I am to be treated, I will at once withdraw from your company.’ And with that, Stanley strode out of the room, leaving guests in stunned silence. ‘His departure was so sudden and unexpected that the meeting was quite taken by surprise and seemed uncertain what to do’, the paper reported. The Mayor was first to speak and expressed ‘very deep regret that anything should have occurred to annoy Mr. Stanley, and he must certainly say that it was a very unmannerly thing for the gentleman, whoever he was, to have laughed out in the manner he did.’
An offended Stanley returned to London early the following morning, but was persuaded to return to Brighton a few days later to attend the Mayor’s ‘farewell dejeuner’ for the President and Executive of the British Association ‘and other distinguished visitors’ in the Royal Pavilion’s banqueting room. Stanley was seated at the top table and agreed to say a few more words to the 200 guests. To everyone’s delight he spoke at length about the ill-fated Livingstone Search Expedition, abandoned when they heard about the New York Herald’s success. While thanking Stanley for returning to Brighton, the Society’s president, Francis Galton, used the occasion to take a final public dig at Stanley. He told guests: ‘I cannot conclude without asking Mr. Stanley one question. I have read a paragraph in the papers, which gives me some hope that we may claim him as an Englishman or a Welshman. I hope he will tell whether the rumour is founded on fact.’
Stanley was not expecting this question. Had he known he would be asked to confirm his true nationality in front of 200 strangers, he would never have agreed to return to Brighton. He stood up slowly and the crowd cheered. He remained silent until the room was so quiet guests could have heard a feather drop. He told them:
Before I went to Central Africa, it was supposed that Livingstone was the most interesting topic of the day. Mr. Galton now wishes me to understand that the most interesting topic here is my most humble biography. Permit me to say that when I received my instructions from Mr. James Gordon Bennett, he told me not to discover myself, but to go and discover Livingstone. [Cheers] As to myself, it is sheer idle curiosity; it is sheer nonsense. Why, I am hardly thirty years old and I have done nothing to justify demand for my biography. But let me say that I am going to write a book, and if Mr. Galton wishes to know my biography, let me advise him to look into it. [Laughter] He will find in it, also, many other interesting subjects [laughter] concerning the geographies of England and America, concerning adventurers, concerning travels, new geographical facts; and nothing shall be ‘sensational’, I vow.
With cheers ringing in his ears, Stanley sat down, having skilfully avoided the question while still providing Galton with an answer. That night he recorded in his journal:
A person like myself with such a miserable, unfortunate past cannot possibly find pleasure in speaking before people who have wined, and rather to the full, about his poverty-stricken childhood and indulge in maudlin grief over circumstances that were utterly beyond his control? What had I to do with my birth in Wales? It was only an accident that my mother did not prefer to stay in London when her pains informed her of the approaching event. Denbigh is only a day’s journey for a pedestrian from the English border, and here these people are perpetually talking about Welshmen and Scotsmen and Irishmen as though these nationalities were foreigners to the English.
By 28 August Stanley was in better spirits thanks to a letter and package hand-delivered to his suite at the Langham. The envelope bore an official royal seal and the contents read:
Sir – I have great satisfaction in conveying to you, by command of the Queen, Her Majesty’s high appreciation of the prudence and zeal which you have displayed in opening a communication with Dr. Livingstone and relieving Her Majesty from the anxiety which, in common with her subjects, she had felt in regard to the fate of that distinguished traveller. The Queen desires me to express her thanks for the service you have thus rendered, together with her Majesty’s congratulations on your having so successfully carried on the mission, which you fearlessly undertook. Her Majesty also desires me to request your acceptance of the memorial, which accompanies this letter. I am, sir, your most obedient humble servant – Granville.
The ‘memorial’ referred to was ‘a beautiful and valuable gold snuff-box set with brilliants’ (more than sixty diamonds) which, Stanley said, ‘will be treasured by me as among the pleasantest results of my undertaking’.
Punch used the occasion to spin one of its famous rhymes containing a message for the man who had found Livingstone:
Her Majesty sends you a snuff-box, brave Stanley.
The gift holds a hint which my Majesty adds:
’Tis that you, the undaunted, successful and manly,
Should turn up your Nose at all cavilling cads.
On 10 September 1872, Stanley was summoned to meet Queen Victoria at Dunrobin Castle, the most distant of Scotland’s great houses and set in the northern Highlands. He travelled north in the company of Sir Henry Rawlinson, who spent half the train journey trying to make amends for the Royal Geographical Society’s initial doubts about Stanley’s discovery of Livingstone and the other half instructing him how to behave in front of the Queen. Rawlinson had added: ‘Of course, you are not to talk or write about what you should see or hear.’ At midday, the Queen entered and the gathered assembly
bowed most profoundly, and the Queen advancing, Sir Henry introduced me in a short sentence. I regarded her with many feelings, first as the greatest lady in the land . . . and lastly, as that mysterious personage whom I had always heard spoken of, ever since I could understand anything, as The Queen. And poor blind Sir Henry, to think that I would venture to speak or write about this lady, whom in my heart of hearts, next to God, I worshipped. Besides, only of late, she has honoured me with a memorial, which is the more priceless that it was given when so few believed me.
The Queen and the former workhouse boy spoke about Livingstone and Africa and Victoria reminded her guest that in 1858 she had met the doctor, who had named the Victoria Falls in her honour. Later that evening, as was her custom, Victoria sat at her desk to write to members of her family, married to various other royal personages across Europe. In a letter to her daughter, Princess Victoria, Crown Princess of Prussia, the Queen described Stanley as ‘a determined, ugly little man – with a strong American twang’.