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Sir Henry Morton Stanley

10 of 41 portraits of Sir Henry Morton Stanley

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Sir Henry Morton Stanley

by London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company
carbon carte-de-visite, 1872
3 1/2 in. x 2 1/4 in. (90 mm x 57 mm) image size
Acquired from Dalziel Collection, before 1977
Photographs Collection
NPG x27584

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Kalulu (Ndugu M'hali) was given to Stanley by a slave trader in 1871. He was Stanley's personal servant and companion before drowning in the Congo in 1877. Here, in the simulated Africa of a London studio, master and servant re-enact their roles.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Levitt, Sarah, Fashion in Photographs 1880-1900, 1991, p. 26
  • Rogers, Malcolm, Camera Portraits, 1989 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 20 October 1989 - 21 January 1990), p. 89 Read entry

    On 16 October 1869 the proprietor of the New York Herald ordered his special correspondent H. M. Stanley to 'find Livingstone', who was lost in the interior of Africa. Two years later, on 10 November 1871, he came face to face with Livingstone at Ujiji on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, 'reduced to the lowest ebb in fortune'. Stanley returned to find himself famous; England and America resounded with the story of his adventures, which he published as How I Found Livingstone (1872).

    This photograph, which first appeared as frontispiece to his book, shows Stanley in tropical kit, the man of action. It was probably taken shortly after his return to London, and was widely published by the London Stereoscopic Company. This carte-de-visite version was produced for promotional purposes by 'E. Moses & Son, Merchant Tailor & Outfitters for all classes' of London and Bradford, and is on the firm's printed mount.

    Stanley devoted most of his later life to travel and exploration, and to publishing his experiences, but this workhouse boy from St Asaph ended his career as a Unionist Member of Parliament.

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Current affairs

The (Secret) Ballot Act is passed. By ending open voting in local and general elections, the act reduced the scope for intimidation at hustings, an important step towards democracy. Previously, voters had to mount a platform and announce their choice of candidate to a recording officer, so although most working men had already been enfranchised, employers were able to punish workers who did not vote for their preferred candidate.

Art and science

George Eliot's novel Middlemarch is published. Exploring the impact of the 1832 Reform Act on provincial England, and charting the changes in class, politics, art and science in the nineteenth-century, Eliot's novel is widely perceived to be one of the best examples of the English realist novel.

International

The Metaphysical Club is formed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by William James (brother of author Henry James), Oliver Wendel Holmes Jr, and Charles Sanders Peirce. The group begins to develop the American philosophy of pragmatism, which held that ideas were simply mental constructs that people formed to help them cope with the world, but which did not exist in an ideal realm.

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