Monze Education Fund

and Guide to Monze

The well known Scottish missionary, doctor and explorer did stay briefly as a guest of Chief Monze in December 1855 - 150 years ago. This occurred during the second of Livingstone's expeditions (1852-56), when travelling first from Cape Town North, then to present day Angola, then from the West to East, partly retracing his steps along the river Zambezi.

Rather than trek along the river, Livingstone struck North West onto the Batoka plateau, up past Kalomo and  via Monze to the Kafue River. From here he headed East to meet the Zambezi again before continuing to the Indian Ocean. He then went back to Great Britain for a brief time.  Livingstone recorded the visit to Monze  in one of his journals which once published made him financially independent.

His book, which was received with enthusiasm, also led to the Royal Geographical Society inviting him to lead another expedition. Livingstone later returned to search for the source of the Nile, meeting Stanley* at Ujiji on the shores of lake Tanganyika. Almost a year later on or around the 1st  May 1873 Livingstone died of disease by his bedside in Chief Chitambo's village which is near lake Bengwelo, within modern day Zambia. Such was his love for Africa, that his long time travelling companions buried his heart under a mvula tree. His body was then carried back to the coast and returned to Great Britain where it is buried in the nave of Westminster Abbey, London.

There are several National Monuments in Zambia commemorating Livingstone's passage through the country.

* a Welsh born naturalised American citizen