Carry it with you everywhere "without exciting suspicion"

Advertisements for “Therapion: or Cure of Cures” pop up regularly in archival newspapers from 1860 through to the mid 1940s.

Also described as “The New French Remedy”, it came in packages numbered 1 to 3 and to those taken in by its effusive quackery, it must have seemed the wonder drug of all drugs. In an age when euphemisms were used for body parts or bedroom activities, the word “French” has certain implications (French letter, French pox, etc.)  During the 1860s  the advertisements were quite freely descriptive, but by the turn of the 19th Century they became less detailed.

Image found on Ebay (link  since removed)

Following is the earliest text of the advertisement as it appears in many newspapers from the 1860s before either censors or official health bodies insisted they be less specific as to description or the promised cures. How much of the flowery assurances that the stuff had been approved by Royal Letters Patent or HM Commissioners can be believed, however, and did the French doctors agree to have their names included? [My comments in square brackets.]

THE NEW FRENCH REMEDY;

By Royal Letters Patent, under the special sanction of Her Majesty's Government, and the Chiefs of the Faculte de France [Needs research to prove.]

THERAPION:- or CURE OF CURES

This successful and highly popular mendicament [old Scots word for medication], as employed in the continental hospitals by Rostan, Jobert, Velpeau [all real French doctors] and others, combines all the desiderata [objects of desire] to be sought in a medicine of the kind, and surpasses everything hitherto employed. Devoid of all taste, odour, and appearance of medicine, it can be left or carried anywhere, and taken from time to time without exciting suspicion. Each package contains full instructions for every case.

THERAPION, No. 1, in three days only [truly amazing!] removes gonorrhoea, gleet, and all discharges effectually superseding injections, the use of which does irreparable harm by laying the foundation of stricture and other serious diseases. In dysentery, piles, irritation of the lower bowel, cough, bronchitis, asthma, and some of the more trying complaints of this kind, it will be found astonishingly efficacious, affording prompt relief where other well-tried remedies have been powerless. 

THERAPION, No. 2 for syphilis, disease of the bones, sore throat, threatened destruction of the nose and palate; impurity of blood, scurvy, pimples, spots, blotches, and all diseases for which it has been too much a fashion to employ mercury, sarsaparilla, etc., to the destruction of the sufferer's teeth; and ruin of health. Under this medicine every vestige of disease rapidly disappears; and the skin assumes the pleasing softness of infancy. [Cure your potentially fatal syphilis and a bad complexion in the one dose!]

THERAPION, No. 3, for relaxation, spermatorrhoea [trendy mid 19thC disease known as male hysteria], and all the distressing consequences arising from early abuse, excess, residence in hot, unhealthy climates, etc. [Possible inspiration for Noel Coward's Mad Dogs and Englishmen]. It possesses surprising power in restoring strength and vigour to the debilitated. To those who are prevented entering the marriage state by the consequences of early error, it will render essential aid by subduing all dis-qualifications;  and restoring the lost tone to the system. [The number of men who may have lied to their brides about having a STD and thought this stuff had cured them is both sad and scary.]

Therapion may be procured at 11.s [shillings], and 33.s per package, through all medicine vendors, or in £5 packages for foreign shipment, direct from London only, by which £1 12s. are saved; and £10 packages for the more inveterate cases, by which a still greater saving is effected. In ordering the above, the purchaser should state which of the three numbers he requires.[£5 or £10 would be astronomical sums to pay when an annual income of +/-£100 would have been a respectable wage for a skilled individual, and most working people earned far less.]

HER MAJESTY’S HON. COMMISSIONERS have graciously permitted the government stamp bearing the word "Therapion” in white letters to be attached to each package; thus insuring the public against fraudulent imitations, and securing to the proprietor the sole right of supply throughout her dominions; and any infringement of which they will prosecute with the utmost severity. [Very slick and sure of themselves.]

AGENTS FOR ENGLAND, Thomas & Co.,7 Upper St. Martin's Lane, London; Raimes & Co., Liverpool; Apothecaries Comp., Glasgow ; Ferris & Co., Bristol; Cornish & Co., Plymouth; Rowe, Devonport; Randall & Co., Southampton; and obtainable through all medicine vendors in the known world, or in case of difficulty, by enclosing a draft or order for £5  or £10, according to the nature of the case, payable in London to Messrs. Thomas & Co., as above, a large package will be sent by return mail, carefully secured from observation or accident.

Tracking down who actually made this stuff and owned/sold the recipe would be an exercise far beyond the scope of this overview, but the name of Thomas & Co. of St Martin's Lane appears on all the early advertisements, later an R. Johnson of Holford Square and finally Dr Le Clerc Co. of Hampstead. None of these are easily traceable, which is only to be expected. Interestingly, however, there is a booklet in the Wellcome Library written by a Prof Le Clerc about Therapion but it is unavailable to read online.

Over the years, the advertisements were progressively condensed, as in this one from the Derbyshire Times 15 September 1900 and although it was well over 40 years old by then, it was still described as “new” and had added another French doctor to the list.

THE NEW FRENCH REMEDY

THERAPION

This successful and highly popular Remedy, as employed in the Continental Hosptials by Ricord, Rostan, Jobert, Velpeau, and others, surpasses everything hitherto employed for impurity of the blood, spots, blotches, pains and swellings of the joins, kidney diseases, piles, gravel, pains in the back, rheumatism, gout, exhaustion, sleeplessness, etc. Nos. 1, 2, and 3, according to diseases for which intended.

Full particulars send stamped addressed envelope for pamphlet to Mr R JOHNSON, 43 Holford Square, London W.C.

By 1941 the advertisements had become very small and difficult to read. The price has gone down to 3 shillings and there is definitely no indication of its earlier assertions. Although more than 80 years old, it was still “new” in 1944 and available through chemists such as Boots and Timothy White, but then it seems to have quietly disappeared.

MEDICAL. THE NEW FRENCH REMEDY.— THERAPION. Sold by leading chemists. Price in England, 3/. Dr. Le Clerc Co., Haverstock-rd., N.W.5, London. THERAPION No. 1 for Bladder, Catarrh, Cystitis. THERAPION No. 2 for Blood and Skin Diseases. THERAPION No. 3 for Chronic Weakness, etc.

Is there any evidence at all that The New French Remedy cured anyone of STD’s or anything else for that matter? The same advertisement appears year after year in the newspapers of not only the United Kingdom, but also in the USA, Australia, New Zealand, India and Singapore. Was no-one game to admit it didn’t work because that would reveal some embarrassing health issue or they had been victims of quackery? 

The Wellcome Trust has a booklet from 1909 on research into “Secret Remedies: What they Cost and what they Contain” in which No. 3 Therapion was analysed for the British Medical Journal. It contained: Camphor, Glycerin, Powdered Liquorice, Calcium Glycerophosphate, Extract of Gentian, Extract of Damiana, an Alkaloid and Water, with a possible slight trace of either Fennel or Anise. Damiana seems to have aphrodisiac qualities, but the BMJ concluded that the product was non-poisonous and that the cost of just over an ounce was only tuppence [two pennies]. That means a lot of money was made out of Therapion during its existence. As is still the case today when it comes to health, there will always be those ready to fleece the desperate and the gullible.

Advertisements can be found through Papers Past Online, Singapore NG, British Newspapers Online, Trove, and Chronicling America.

From Woodstock Museum, Ontario, Canada

Visit The Quack Doctor for more interesting stories of historical quackery. 

Beware of imitations! Either cure-all or killer

Chlorodyne was another product still given to children during the 1950s, usually for stomach upsets. Just a couple of drops in water were enough to do the trick. I still remember its pungent smell and taste and the general feeling of comfortable drowsiness it gave me. I have to wonder if my parents were ever really aware of how dangerous it was or whether they even bothered to keep it under lock and key.

Although there were many other imitators and the ingredients seem to vary somewhat depending on the sources, just the words alone seem astonishing today - opium (or morphia), chloroform, cannabis, prussic acid, belladonna, and something more often associated with explosives, nitroglycerin. 

John Collis Browne was born in 1819 in Maidstone, Kent and after gaining medical qualifications in London joined the Army Medical Service as an assistant surgeon. He served with the 98th Regiment of Foot in China and later in various outposts in India and was one of the first regimental surgeons to serve on the North-West Frontier.

Apparently Collis Browne was also an
advocate in the health benefits of beards *

In 1848, Browne created his compound as a treatment for cholera, a disease that had carried off countless thousands of British men, women and children in the sub-continent. Its effectiveness was soon recognised. He later served in the Cape Colony before returning to England where he was asked to travel to the village of Trimdon in County Durham where there had been an outbreak of cholera.  So successful was his treatment that the villagers presented him with a gold medal in appreciation and the General Board of Health officially approved the mixture as a major treatment for cholera.

Leaving the army in 1856, Browne went into partnership with a chemist, John T. Davenport, whose firm would continue to manufacture chlorodyne for another 130 years. It became a must-have in the medical cabinets of millions of people and was used for all manner of ailments.

Other than his invention which made him very wealthy, Browne had diverse interests. He took out patents for improvements in storing explosives in ships and apparatus for raising wrecks and spent his retirement in Ramsgate messing about with boats, including the schooner Kala Fish.

Dr Collis Browne died in 1884 of hepatitis and he is buried in the churchyard of St Laurence, Ramsgate, Kent. His former home, Albion House, is now an hotel.

For all the lives that may have been saved by the invention of chlorodyne, it cast a very dark shadow as well.

On researching this topic through the newspaper archives, the number of intentional and unintentional deaths linked directly to chlorodyne soon proved far too numerous to include here in any detail. From some of the inquest accounts, apparently chlorodyne when mixed with other substances, especially alcohol, could not be easily traced in the less-scientific autopsy methods of the past so the results were often inconclusive. 

The earliest newspaper report of death by chlorodyne was in 1856 when a toddler found the landlady’s bottle and just drank the lot. There are many inquests into people who thought it was a cure after a night of heavy drinking. Because of its easy availability it was also a popular route for suicides.

This sad report from 1886 in the Hemel Hempstead Gazette is about three maiden sisters who had a major addiction that only came to light when one of them died. One wonders what happened to the other two.

But how many cases went unreported? How many babies were accidentally killed by weary or depressed mothers who topped up their milk with just a few too many drops? And popping an overdose into an ill or aged relative’s nightly cup of cocoa would be a very convenient way of getting rid of them in order to claim an inheritance.

Then of course there are the famous cases, including the notorious baby-farmers and murderers Sach and Waters who used the substance to do away with the babies.  It was implicated in the Nottingham murder of Ada Baguley by Dorothy Waddingham and for several other British cases, see books written by Nicola Sly including Murder by Poison: A Casebook of Historic British Murders and Channel Island Murders. As the product was widely available throughout the Empire, who knows what other suspicious and uninvestigated deaths might be attributed to the use and/or abuse of the product.

  

A prominent politician from Western Australia, Sir Thomas Cockburn-Campbell died from it. This extract from his entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography: 

"He was found unconscious in the Legislative Council building on the evening of 27 September 1892, and died soon afterwards. The coroner found that he died from an overdose of chlorodyne taken to induce sleep, he well knowing the risk he was taking of its killing him."

 The stuff even pops up in this medical article about the last days of Queen Victoria! 

"... when requested at night to provide relief for the Queen’s insomnia, Sir James [Reid] gave chlorodyne, a vestigial version of the hypnotic chloral hydrate ..."

The following newspaper report from the New Zealand newspaper The Star of 5 February 1895 is just one example of the many incidents resulting in warnings in the press and it is interesting that the Colony of Victoria (Australia) had already restricted its use by that time, although it continued to be available freely around the world until comparatively recently. (Strangely enough, under the name of J. Collis Browne, the product still continues today as a remedy for both coughs and diarrhoea and still contains a form of morphine as well as peppermint. This appears to be available in pharmacies in the UK but nowhere else that I can see.)

  

The cure-all lozenge!

(* Biographical information taken from Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

The tonic wine that cures your brain-fag, love life and blood-sucking by vampire bats ...

This will be a new series of posts on “tonic” wines and other health remedies that were once in common use and have now largely disappeared.

Growing up in the 1950s, I was one of those kids who always seemed to get a lot of infections and was often put onto a tonic regime of Wincarnis. It could only be purchased via the off-licence or chemist and was pretty pricey if I recall. 

Hard to imagine now, but there I would be, aged eight or nine, sitting with my parents at the dining table with my own little sherry glass containing my nightly dose of Wincarnis. When you look closely at this image from 1963, it shows that it is “27.5 proof spirit”. Yikes! And doctors actually recommended this for weakly kids?!

Image from ebay.ca

Fortunately, it didn’t turn me into an alcoholic and my health has been pretty good throughout my adult life so there might have been something in that tonic after all.

It originated in 1881 and was made by Colemans of Norwich (not to be confused with the mustard people) and contained meat extract, malt and port wine. It is still made today and although the meat component has gone, the modern recipe for Wincarnis remains a closely-guarded secret but it still has a pretty hefty alcohol content and in most countries it would be illegal to give it to kids! 

There are numerous images to be found for Wincarnis online, but here are just a few from old newspapers at Trove and Grace's Guide to British Industrial History:

Fixes brain-fag and mental prostration ...

More prostration ...

Joy, strength and vigour

Will even rescue your love life ...

... in just three days

With custard anyone?

If it makes time stand still, perhaps I should start taking it again?

My personal favourite. As good as a blood transfusion.

The Africans - The Zambezi Expedition (11)

Although there are still many individuals associated with Livingstone’s thwarted Zambezi Expedition who have been forgotten or remain unrecognised, this series of posts will conclude with a brief tribute to those members of the Expedition without whom the venture - and all of Livingstone’s explorations in general it might be said - would have been impossible, and that is the huge number of African people who acted as guides, translators, porters, sailors, labourers and cooks.  

They came from diverse tribal backgrounds, such as the Yao from Mozambique and the Makololo from areas in what is now Botswana and Zambia, the tribe most favoured by Livingstone. There were the Kroomen or Krumen of West Africa who were associated with the Royal Navy, Johanna men from the Comoro Islands and Bombay Africans and Nasik Boys - often former slaves sent to missionary schools in India to learn practical skills.

History affords some of the more famous a few pages. 

Abdullah Susi and James Chuma are

Jacob Wainwright guarding Livingstone's coffin

perhaps the best-known as those who helped to preserve David Livingstone’s body and then carry it all the way from Chitambo in present-day Zambia to Zanzibar on the coast and then on to eventual burial in Westminster Abbey. Jacob Wainwright was one of the pall-bearers.

Susi and Chuma toured Britain telling of their experiences, but there were many others who escorted the body like Carrus Farrar or John Wekatoni who have slipped through history’s cracks and the sad fact is that they were discarded with little credit or further acknowledgement.

Matthew Wellington - refused a pension

Another example is Matthew Wellington who lived on in Mombasa until 1935 and is still within living memory of individuals who met him as children. (See this blog.)  He even met the Prince of Wales (later Duke of Windsor) in 1928. For years, local officials and well-wishers tried to get a small pension to help Matthew, but their appeals fell on deaf ears in a Britain which had long ago abandoned its obligations to all such men.

Although 60 RGS (Royal Geographical Society) medals had been awarded to those connected with Livingstone's last journey, not all of them reached their recipients. Carrus Farrar's son sold his father's medal in 1906 to a colonial government official but when the purchaser wrote to the RGS about the award, nothing could be found relating to it.

The 1975 book by Donald Simpson Dark Companions  provides a valuable insight into some of these forgotten heroes as well as some who turned into villains.

The Zambezi Expedition is covered in Chapter 5, some of which overlaps with other famous enterprises such as the search for the source of the Nile by Baker, Burton and Speke, and Henry Stanley's sorties looking for Livingstone and the relief of Emin Pasha. It is recommended reading for anyone interested in the African contribution to 19th Century exploration. The Who's Who of Africans at the end of the book is particularly useful in finding out what happened to some of them.

But beyond a few facts and dates, one is left to try and imagine what some of their personal stories might have been: men such as Bishop Mackenzie's Jamaican cook, Lorenzo Johnson, who had been a slave in the American South, or Joao Tizora, known as Joe Scissors, who had been sold into slavery by his own family yet still managed to become a highly competent river pilot.

But they are all gone, leaving just a few traces of their lives in books written by white men, and all are worthy of further study and fresh investigation by African researchers.

Vasco da Gama, the first European to see the delta of the Zambezi River, rather prematurely called it Rio dos Bons Sinais, or the River of Good Omens. David Livingstone's expedition had few good omens and, if one believes in such things, perhaps he had offended Nyaminyami, the serpent god of the river in some way and it took its vengeance. 

Nyaminyami by Larry Norton

I am Nyami Nyami

Bringer of life

Courier of death

Ceaseless and eternal

I scatter your bones in my sand

Crush your dreams on my basalt

Bleach your memories

And send them

Silent to the sea

Brother Charles, lost in the shadow - The Zambezi Expedition (10)

In many biographies, books or articles about David Livingstone and the Zambezi Expedition, considerable blame for the mistakes and personality clashes is placed at the feet of David’s younger brother, Charles. He is seen as the main catalyst in the dismissals and resignations, the miscommunication and even some of the unfortunate deaths that resulted. Yet Charles Livingstone is perhaps the most intriguing and complex character in all of this sorry saga.

Was he really the fanatical, uptight, obsessive and, on occasion, frighteningly violent, individual that the records show? Was he just so blinkered and determined to stick to his religious and "moral" duty that he could not tolerate the slightest refraction or weakness in others? Or could it simply be that he suffered from a serious depressive illness or psychological disorder?

Dr Oliver Ransford in his book David Livingstone, the Dark Interior, certainly suggests the latter and quotes several extracts from letters Charles wrote to his wife about his failure to cope, his nervousness and anxiety problems that led him to borderline breakdown, even a fear that "preaching will lead to my end in the madhouse". Ransford also notes that Charles was treated for mental difficulties several times and considers the likelihood this was partly genetic, given David's own stormy and erratic behaviour when dealing with people, and also that other siblings of the Livingstone family had been described as "dottie" or "daft".

Charles was eight years younger than David, born in 1821. He also worked long and arduous hours in a Lanarkshire cotton factory as a boy and later in a lace factory, but also tried to improve his prospects with after-hours studies. In 1840, he left Scotland for the United States to study first in Ohio at Oberlin, a progressive religious training college and then later at the Union Theological College in New York from where he graduated in 1850. He held various ministries throughout New England and in 1852 married Harriette Cemantha Ingraham in Plympton, Massachusetts and they had three children, a son and two daughters. 

This History of Oberlin College contains several references to Charles and his time there (including his first meeting with Miss Ingram [sic]) and extracts from letters that he wrote home about his experiences.

 

The younger Reverend by Charles Gow

Whilst on leave in England in 1857, Charles met up again with his brother David who was now world-famous after his discoveries in Central Africa, and who was in the throes of planning the Zambezi Expedition. As David felt he could trust a family member above all others, he pressured Charles into joining the Expedition as the "moral agent". This meant Charles had to give up his ministries in America and also leave his wife and children behind. He was not to see them again until 1863 by which time he was broken by ill health and incapable of taking up his previous full duties of a church minister.

But yet again a year later, he left America for England to join David in residence at Newstead Abbey, the former home of Lord Byron, where he would help co-write the Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambezi and its Tributaries.

This was to prove nowhere as successful as David Livingstone’s earlier travel book, being a cobbled together and hastily written polemic against slavery and justification for the Expedition, with no mention of the failures, quarrels and setbacks. Quite simply, it was a cover-up. When Charles Meller, another abused member of the Expedition, heard of it, he scoffed and predicted it would be "a concoction ... a curious composition of untruth."  (As related earlier in this series of blog posts, major efforts and contributions by various individuals were either played down or left out altogether.)

The older Reverend (carte de visite, date unknown)

After this, it is strange then, given the alleged poor state of his health and the prospect of even longer separation from his family, that Charles Livingstone accepted an appointment as British Consul in West Africa. 

At the time, when colonial officials wanted to demote or get rid of someone who had been controversial or an embarrassment in some way, they would be despatched to the worst possible posting; in this case, the island of Fernando Po (now Bioko), within the area of the Gulf of Guinea known as the "white man’s grave" where it was pretty well guaranteed the incumbent would come down with one of the endemic fevers and quietly shuffle off.

Sir Richard Francis Burton was the most famous renegade thorn in the side of the colonial office who had been sent to Fernando Po. But Burton stuck it out and when he was transferred to Brazil, Charles Livingstone replaced him. It is astonishing Charles managed to survive both there and at Calabar for nine years. Wives didn’t accompany men to such remote or dangerous outposts and it is likely that Charles only met his family on periodic leave breaks to England, his last being about eighteen months before he died.

Old image of Fernando Po

As Consul, Charles was heavily involved trying to solve complications for British trading interests in the region. There were various crises within the Kingdom of Bonny, which culminated in the secession of Opobo in 1869, followed by small wars throughout what is now Nigeria. Charles also continued the proselytizing he was trained in with the result that local chiefs gave up their "cruel and heathenish ways" and converted to Christianity.

In an account of his experiences visiting a cannibal king on the Bight of Biafra published in Bell’s Messenger (read it in full here) the last few sentences suggest that Charles Livingstone was not quite as lacking in humour as some of his critics have suggested:

"Never before in Africa have I seen such powerful-looking men as the Okrika. I could not but admire their physical strength. As they sat before me chewing bits of chop-stick to clean their teeth and gazing earnestly at me, the thought occasionally flashed across my mind, ‘Are these cannibals wondering how a piece of roast Consul would taste, and which would be most savoury, cold Consul or hot?"

Charles was recalled in 1873, partly because of his unpopularity in thwarting the often unscrupulous ambitions of local British palm oil traders. (Details about this are sketchy and research into this unknown side to Charles might provide another angle to his character that is untrammelled by links to his brother.) Sadly, he never reached home and died "of African Fever" while on board ship on 28 October 1873. Even in his home country of Scotland, his death in the Edinburgh News of 22 November warranted just these few lines.

Although Charles could not have known it at the time, David had died six months before in a remote region of what is now Zambia and it took his faithful porters many more months to bring his remains back to Britain.

David Livingstone now lies exalted in Westminster Abbey, while Charles has neither known grave nor major memorial. His wife Harriette died in 1900 and his three children continued to live together in Colorado where his son worked as a metallurgist. None of them ever married and the last survivor, Charles, died in 1937. All were interred in the same cemetery - see Find-a-Grave.

Some Livingstone scholars such as G.W. Clendennen have been a little more considerate of Charles and it is worth reading his aptly-named article "Historians Beware: You can't judge a book by its critics; or, problems with a nineteenth-century exploration record" (see JSTOR 1994 archives) and in which he discusses the writing of Narrative ... and mysteries around journals and other works written by Charles. He also suggests that Charles was a more considered individual, less rash than David and even that he did not exhibit the same degree of loathing towards the Portuguese as his brother. 

However, without any in-depth published biography to rely on, or descendants with intimate family knowledge to offer in his defence, Charles Livingstone must remain a lost enigma. Wholeheartedly disliked by so many, he appears a frustrated and lonely figure doomed to be overshadowed by the achievements and sanctity of his brother. And if he was also plagued by some form of clinical depression, it would not have been helped by enforced isolation and the repeated fevers that damaged or destroyed so many 19th Century Europeans who devoted much of their lives to Africa.

The most competent, yet least appreciated. Gunner E. D. Young - The Zambezi Expedition (9)

An article in the Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle of Saturday, 27 June, 1891, under the heading Naval Notes & News (from our Own Correspondents) draws attention to one of the most competent men ever to serve in the quest for opening up of the Zambezi and Shire Rivers, yet is probably the least known and least appreciated: It summarises the achievements of Edward Daniel Young exceptionally well and is included here almost in its entirety:

"I cannot see how the Admiralty can possibly ignore the claims of Mr Edward D. Young, a warrant officer, who this month retires through age from the position of inspecting officer of Coastguard at Dungeness, to some special recognition of his exceptionally brilliant career. He has unquestionably made the most distinguished record of any man in the service who has once served before the mast during the past two generations and, unlike some others who have performed special services of great merit, he has at all times done credit to the position in which he has been placed. The name of Mr. Young was, a few years since, on everybody’s lips as the intrepid leader of the expedition which disproved the tale of the death of the great African explorer, Livingstone, and the man who subsequently performed the difficult feat of planting on the breezy uplands of Lake Nyassa the memorial mission settlement of Livingstonia.
 When Livingstone was on his official expedition, the Pioneer, steamship, was built and sent out to him, and Mr. Young, then a naval warrant officer, was selected to command her. This service he performed to the satisfaction of Dr Livingstone, of the Admiralty, and also of the Royal Geographical Society, so that later on, when a leader was required for the Livingstone Search Expedition, Mr. Young was immediately selected. He designed a steel boat [see footnote*], which was made in sections, and with this and a small party he left England, ascended the Shire River then, hiring men, the boat was taken to pieces and carried on men’s shoulders up some fifty miles of pathless and precipitous forest. Having reached the lake, it was again screwed together, and in it the intrepid leader and his trusty men circumnavigated the lake until they struck across the explorer’s trail, and having proved the falsity of the report of his death, returned to England within seven months of his departure without the loss of a single life.
 After the actual death of the explorer the Scottish Universities determined to erect a permanent memorial to his memory, and it was decided to this end that a settlement should be planned on Lake Nyassa. To Young was entrusted the leadership and command, and splendidly did he perform his task. A large vessel, to be propelled by steam, was designed (like its predecessor, made in sections), and with this and a large party, and all the necessary and extensive paraphernalia for the erection of dwellings, planting of crops, etc., the party started. All these items, including the ship’s boiler, had to be transported on the shoulders of men from the cataracts on the Shire River up through 50 miles of forest to the lake, and it must be remembered that the loss of a single nut or screw would have meant disaster to the whole party. The work was safely accomplished, and the vessel was put together again on the lake, where she trades today. The Times in 1887, reported that at that time, some ten years subsequent the Ilala was tight as a bottle, while the settlement of Livingstonia then was sufficiently flourishing to support 13 publications issued in the native language and a large and successful town had grown up.
 It was as a reward for his services that Mr. Young received the appointment at Dungeness, and now he has to retire. As it is, he will be pensioned as a warrant officer, which means his utter effacement, as the names of pensioned warrants are not retained in the Navy List after they pass from the Active List. Mr. Young has one failing, and that an uncommon and very serious one in these days of self-advertisement when men are taken by a simple public very much at their own appraisement. He is far too modest, and has allowed his really valuable services to be almost forgotten except by a few friends, who are now seeking to secure their proper recognition. There ought to be no difficulty whatever in conferring upon him the rank of lieutenant upon his retirement, so that the few years left to him may be spent in that modern comfort which such advancement would bring with it. Had he sprung from another class there would, I venture to say, have been any reason to remind the authorities of their duty."

Young’s experiences with capturing slavers affected him deeply and his abhorrence of slavery played a major part in his association with firstly the Zambezi Expedition, his later search for Livingstone and the establishment of Livingstonia Mission in what is now Malawi.

Born in Alverstoke, Hampshire in 1831, he was educated at Greenwich School and was a boy entrant into the Royal Navy. In 1852 he married Eliza Love Bartlett and had one daughter, also Eliza.

He spent several years on slavery patrols aboard HMS Gorgon off the east coast of Africa, often being in charge of one of the small boats put off to chase Arab dhows among the mosquito-infested rivers. Promoted to Gunner in June 1858 he was selected and seconded for duty on the Expedition’s steamers early in 1862.

Young seems to have been the only individual to have successfully negotiated the bickering, vitriol and accusations thrown around by both David and Charles Livingstone that plagued the Expedition and he stayed with it until its recall in 1864.

When David Livingstone went missing soon after the failure of the Expedition, and was presumed dead, Young was the ideal choice to lead a search for his former leader. He had personal knowledge of the man who gave out the information that Livingstone was dead and had learned not to trust him. And so the "Search for Livingstone" began. (Not to be confused with the more famous search some years later led by Henry Morton Stanley which resulted in the famous ‘Doctor Livingstone, I presume?’ quote.) 

Publications by Edward Young were well-known during the era when Livingstone was much lauded. His diary about the adventure in searching for Livingstone can be read online here. There is also the occasional reprint of other works such as this one. 

In 1875, Young was recruited out of his post with the coastguard at Dungeness and put in charge of taking the specially-constructed vessel Ilala to found the new mission at Livingstonia. That he succeeded eminently in this without major tragedies, racial strife or personality conflicts, reflects on his capabilities. 

(For those readers with access to JSTOR Archives via their institution or library, there is a detailed article on his life by F.M. Withers in the Nyasaland Journal of January, 1951.)

(Image from Electric Scotland)

A formal portrait of Young has been impossible to find, but there is a chance he could be the man on the left with what looks like naval attire. (Image from Livingstone: Man of Africa, Memorial Essays.)

Young was also one of the pall-bearers when David Livingstone was finally laid to rest in Westminster Abbey in April, 1874. Compared with the above photograph, he may well be the third man from the front.

 

Copyright historical archives of London Illustrated News

Those who championed for Young’s promotion must have succeeded as his probate states he died on 4 November 1896 at Hastings as a “retired Lieutenant in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy”. 

His only daughter Eliza never married and thus he has no descendants. Eliza was still living in the family home at 7 High Wickham, Hastings when she died in 1936. Seems there are blue plaques for other notable residents of this street, but the admirable Lieutenant E. D. Young, RN, is not one of them. 

*  The vessel was appropriately named Search, had been built to Young’s design in the Admiralty Dockyards at Chatham. She was thirty feet long, eight in beam and drew eighteen inches of water; was fitted with cutter rigged sails and oars; and was specially constructed in steel sections, so that she could be easily dismantled and carried by porters overland past the cataracts on the Shire.  This image also from London Illustrated News, 4 October 1867 and presumably it is Young in the stern of Search waving farewell as he sets off to find Livingstone.

Guts, intelligence and industry. Richard Thornton - The Zambezi Expedition (8)

Richard Thornton, was the second-youngest of twelve children and born at Cottingley, Yorkshire, in 1838 and he demonstrated early ability at school and deep interest in the natural world.

Richard Thornton

A prizewinning graduate of the London School of Mines, he was about to take up a position as geologist with an Australian government survey when he was presented with the opportunity to join the Zambezi Expedition and he sailed on the Pearl together with several of the other participants including Baines, Bedingfield, Sir John Kirk and Livingstone’s brother Charles.

As has been described earlier in this series of posts, the seeds for future personality conflicts were sown on that voyage. Thornton clearly upset Charles Livingstone for some reason. Possibly his keen intelligence, youthful enthusiasm and a mind open to the exciting opportunities ahead had all or something to do with it. 

As it turned out, Thornton’s youth (barely twenty) and life inexperience were no match for a hardened, stressed and morose David Livingstone, who accused him and Thomas Baines (see earlier post) of laziness, “skylarking”, drinking too much brandy and colluding with the Portuguese: 

“Thornton evidently disinclined to geologize and has done next to nothing for the last three months. Gorges himself with the best of everything he can lay hands on. …” and “Thornton doing nothing: is inveterately lazy and wants good sense.”

George Martelli in his book Livingstone’s River details that Livingstone’s fault was to leave this willing and able, but totally inexperienced, young man: “ ... to his own devices in a savage country, without proper instructions, supervision or any provision for medical care.”

When the majority of the expedition was away up-country, Thornton was left behind at Tete (Mozambique) and told to find any coal seams in the area. Although he was equipped with guides, he did not understand any of the languages and the workers soon took advantage of his youth, indulged in pilfering and refused to obey his orders. Thornton did find a coal seam, but was already suffering from serious bouts of malaria, prickly heat and badly festering mosquito bites. There were days when he could barely stand upright, he was so ill.

From Thornton’s many letters to family members and his diaries which were crammed full of geological and topographical information, it was clear he wasn’t lazy, but he was sacked by Livingstone anyway without even being paid his due salary.

Following his dismissal and partial recovery from the fever, Thornton travelled with Portuguese traders up along the Zambezi and through what is now Zambia to East Africa where he joined up with the German explorer, Baron Karl Klaus von der Decken and accompanied him on an attempt to reach the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Thornton thus became the first Englishman to view the mountain and also to confirm that the summit did indeed have snow and ice.

Mt Kilimanjaro c 1869

David Livingstone clearly regretted his hasty dismissal of the young man, partly because he needed Thornton’s maps and geological surveys for his own reports on the Expedition. 

Thornton was  invited to rejoin the Zambezi Expedition, but by now the young man’s days were numbered and he died on 21 April, 1863, after an heroic journey in bringing food to his companions. Livingstone must have realised that his treatment of Thornton had been harsh and approved the payment of arrears of  his salary - albeit less expenses - to Thornton’s estate. Livingstone never gave any public acknowledgement of his culpability in sending the young man to an early grave. As with the case with Baines, he never forgave Thornton being friendly with the dreaded Portuguese.

Martelli sums up this able young man as follows: 

“Thornton had all the qualities necessary to success in the career he had chosen; guts, intelligence, industry, independence of spirit and but for his tragic death he might well have achieved eminence in the geological exploration of Africa. It was a defect of Livingstone’s leadership that he failed to bring out these qualities, although Thornton had already shown them in his excellent survey of the River Zambezi, and that they only emerged after he had escaped from the Expedition and the baneful influence of Livingstone’s brother.”

Thornton is buried at Maganga village, Malawi, and his grave is still cared for today.

The grave today. See Blogging from Blantyre

Thornton is also recorded on this family tombstone in Shipley, Yorkshire. Find-a-Grave

Links to other webpages that give details of the short life of Richard Thornton, the talented young geologist for the Zambezi Expedition:

The Geological Society Mr Thornton, I Presume

A Son of Cottingley

The Papers of Richard Thornton