mary kingsley didn't travel during the

Mary Kingsley

October 13, 1862

Mary Henrietta Kingsley was an ethnographer, scientific writer, and explorer born in Cambridge, England. She is known for her travels throughout West Africa and the impact that her work had on European perceptions of African cultures and British imperialism. Kingsley authored “Travels in West Africa” and “West African Studies.” She wrote: “It is merely that I have the power of bringing out in my fellow-creatures, white or black, their virtues, in a way honourable to them and fortunate for me.” Reform associations were formed in her honor that helped facilitate governmental change.

Kingsley was born in London on October 13, 1862. Her father, George Kingsley, was a doctor, traveler, and writer. Some believe that her father’s views regarding the injustices faced by Native Americans had an effect on Kingsley’s views on British cultural imperialism in West Africa. While she had little formal education, she had access to her father’s stories and vast library of science and exploration books.

In 1892, both of Kingsley’s parents died and she was left with an inheritance of £4,300. She used this money to travel to the Canary Islands and then West Africa. Kingsley started in Sierra Leone on August 17, 1893, and then traveled to Luanda, Angola. In Angola she lived with the locals and learned wilderness skills. Kingsley returned to England in December 1893.

On December 23, 1894, Kingsley returned to Africa and visited the French Congo and Gabon, to learn about cannibalism. In April 1895, she met Mary Slessor, a Scottish missionary living with the locals. Slessor informed her about the custom of twin killing, which Slessor was trying to eliminate. The custom stems from the belief that one of the twins is the offspring of the devil and since it was not possible to tell the children apart, both are killed and often, the mother is killed as well. Slessor saved many children and now this practice is universally illegal.

While traveling Kingsley financed herself through trade with the locals. She spent time with the Fang people and traveled though their uncharted territories. In Cameroon, she climbed the active volcano, Mount Cameroon and traversed the 13,250 feet (4,040 m) using a route that had never been used by a European.

She returned to England in November 1895 and lectured throughout the country about her travels. Her writings express her strong sympathies for Africans. Her two books, “Travels in West Africa,” and “West African Studies,” as well as her speeches and lobbying in England promoted a new understanding of these little understood tribes and people.

In March 1900, during the Second Boer War, Kingsley volunteered as a nurse in South Africa. She took care prisoners-of-war in the Palace Barracks in Simon’s Town, which had been converted into a makeshift hospital. Typhoid was moving through the wards and within two months, Kingsley developed typhoid and died on June 3, 1900. In accordance to her wishes, she was buried at sea. In 1903, an honorary medal was founded in her name by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

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The History Hit Miscellany of Facts, Figures and Fascinating Finds

Who Was the Pioneering Explorer Mary Kingsley?

History Hit

02 jun 2019.

On 3 June 1900 the British explorer, writer and adventurer Mary Kingsley died whilst voluntarily treating Boer prisoners of war in South Africa. She was just 38 years old.

Oddly, in an age that encourages the recognition of previously overlooked women,  and the understanding and celebration of a wide range of cultures, Kingsley’s pioneering work in Africa is little-known.

Yet it has had a marked impact on the history of Africa, the role of women in exploration, and the British Empire.

Early influences

Mary was the eldest child of George Kingsley, a moderately well-known traveller and writer in his own right. But while great things were expected of her brothers, Mary was encouraged to read Jane Austen and received no formal schooling.

She always displayed great interest in her father’s travels, in particular the trip he took in the 1870s to the United States of America. Only freak weather prevented him from joining up with General Custer before the disastrous battle of the Little Bighorn.

It is thought that George’s observations about the brutal treatment of the Native Americans piqued Mary’s interest in how the British Empire’s African subjects were faring under their new masters.

She read many explorers’ memoirs on travels through “the dark continent” and developed an interest in African culture, which she believed to be under threat from the clumsy if well-meaning efforts of western missionaries.

Africa in 1917. Whilst much had been claimed by European powers, the interior was largely unknown

Mary’s horizons were expanded in 1886, when her brother Charley gained a place at Christ’s College Cambridge, exposing her to a new network of educated and well-travelled people.

The family moved to Cambridge shortly afterwards, and Mary was able to gain some schooling in medicine – which would come in handy in the African jungle.

Family obligations kept her tied to England until the death of her parents 1892. Her inheritance finally enabled her to pursue her lifelong dream of exploring Africa.

She didn’t wait around, heading to Sierra Leone less than a year later. It was considered both exceptional and dangerous for a woman to be travelling alone at the time, especially in the still largely uncharted interior of the continent.

This did not dissuade her. After additional training in the treatment of tropical diseases, Mary set off into the Angolan jungle completely alone.

There she lived alongside the local people; learning their languages, their methods of surviving in the wilderness, and seeking to understand them to a far greater extent than many of her predecessors.

After the success of this first trip, she returned to England to secure more funds, publicity and supplies, before returning as quickly as she could.

This second trip, in 1894, saw her taking even greater risks, traveling deeper into little-known territory. She encountered witch-doctors, cannibals and practitioners of bizarre local religions. She respected these traditions but was troubled by the crueller practices.

Her notes and memoirs were wry and witty, and contained many new observations about the practices and lifestyles of these untouched tribes.

To some, such as the Fang people of Cameroon and Gabon, she was the first westerner they had ever known, a responsibility that she seems to have enjoyed and cherished.

4-faced Ngontang mask of the Fang people

This second expedition was a great success. It even saw her become the first westerner – let alone woman – to climb Mount Cameroon by a new and dangerous route.

She returned to England a celebrity and was greeted by a storm of press interest – largely negative. The assertiveness of her published accounts and achievements lead the papers to describe her as a “new woman” – a largely derogative turn of the century term for an early feminist.

Ironically, Mary did all she could to distance herself from the early suffragettes , being more interested in the rights of African tribes. Yet despite the negativity of the press, Mary toured the UK giving lectures on African culture to packed audiences.

Frances Benjamin Johnston’s Self-Portrait (as “New Woman”), 1896

Her views were certainly ahead of her time. She refused to condemn some African practices, such as polygamy, out of Christian principle.  Instead she argued that they were necessary in the very different and complex fabric of African society, and that to suppress them would be damaging.

Her relationship with empire was more complex. Though she wished to preserve the many African cultures that she encountered, she was not the outright critic of imperialism that some of her modern admirers cast her as.

In light of her experiences, she concluded that the backwardness of African society did need a guiding hand, as long as it was gentle and understood the importance of local culture and tradition.

Though unpalatable today, her views were of her time and played an important role in shaping how the British Empire saw itself.

With a greater understanding of its subjects came a different and less exploitative behaviour toward them, which greatly contributed to the uniquely peaceful break-up of the Empire after the Second World War.

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Kingsley, Mary

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• Jean Fernandez 2  

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Mary Kingsley (1862–1900) was an explorer, ethnographer, naturalist, and celebrity travel writer on West Africa. As an adventurous single woman venturing on her own into a region considered savage and dangerous by most Victorians, she broke the mold of the conventional woman travel writer, who was often a relative of an imperial official or a missionary. Her experiences of West Africa and its peoples narrated in two major works, Travels in West Africa (1897) and West African Studies (1899) made her an authority on the region, while her unorthodox views on African society and culture proved influential in modifying established imperial agendas for West Africa.

Introduction

Mary Kingsley (1862–1900) was an explorer, ethnographer, naturalist, and celebrity travel writer on West Africa. As an adventurous single woman venturing on her own into a region considered savage and dangerous by most Victorians, she broke the mold of the conventional woman travel writer , who was often a...

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Ballantyne, Tony. 2005. Religion, difference, and the limits of imperial history. Victorian Studies Spring 2005: 427–456.

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———. 1896b. Travels on the Western cast of equatorial Africa. The Scottish Geographical Magazine (Read at a Meeting of the Society in Edinburgh, January 1896) 12 (3): 113–124.

———. 1897. Travels in West Africa . London: Macmillan.

———. 1899. West African studies . London: Macmillan.

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Fernandez, J. (2022). Kingsley, Mary. In: The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Victorian Women's Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02721-6_460-1

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02721-6_460-1

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22. Mary Kingsley, Travels in West Africa (1897) and West African Studies (1899)

From the book handbook of british travel writing.

• Katharina Nambula

Mary Henrietta Kingsley was a British explorer, ethnographer and wellknown author of travel literature on West Africa whose thoughts, views and experiences have greatly influenced the perception of British colonial encounters until today. Kingsley was a self-made woman: she first educated herself to a high standard, then organised and carried out her explorations by herself and always worked hard to reach a respected status in society. She was determined and had a strong sense of agency but at the same time, her character was diverse: she showed different facets of herself to different people. The strong explorer and the humble daughter, the resilient and challenging public figure as well as the dutiful Victorian spinster were among the roles that formed her identity, guided her manner, influenced her style of writing and brought her to a position of great influence in British society at the time of her life and after. Kingsley’s travels were inspired by the motivation to protect her own independence especially from mainstream colonial and missionary control. Considering the time and place of travel, Mary Kingsley’s explorations in West Africa may not appear as unique at first sight, because the areas she travelled in had been explored by Western men before her. However, avoiding the old paths that had already been used by Western explorers, Kingsley instead found new routes. On her explorations she entirely relied on the company of West Africans and travelled without Western male companions. Kingsley was an outstanding explorer given her unusual method of approach, her intelligence, her confidence, her strong will and her ability to captivate the masses. She changed the view on African explorations, turned field work into an acceptable scientific method and stood out as an example for female strength and ability that went far beyond the Victorian ideal.

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A Voyager out: The Life of Mary Kingsley

1988, The Geographical Journal

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