Mary Kingsley was a strong, courageous and independent woman who was not only unique because of the places she explored, but also because she traveled during an era when it was very unusual for single women to go on expeditions alone and explore far away places.

Born in Islington, London, Kingley led a sheltered and quiet life where she was schooled at home by her father, George Henry Kingsley. George Kingsley was a doctor who was very interested in traveling and a published author of travel notes and memoirs. Mary learned about foreign places and cultures through her father’s stories and his collection of books. She was very interested in other cultures, natural history, and studied sociology at Cambridge.

Mary’s life changed drastically when her parents both died in 1892. Mary was left searching for a purpose to her life, and decided to pursue her interests in exploration and traveling. She said she wanted to find “something to do that her father had cared for.” She planned a trip to West Africa to continue her father’s studies on African religion, culture and law.

While Mary planned her trip to Africa, she tried to learn as much as possible about traveling. She consulted doctors and read missionary literature to try to acquire information that would be useful for her trip.

From 1893 to 1894 Mary explored places like Kabinda, Old Calabar, and the Lower Congo. She wrote a book about her journey called Travels in West Africa which became a best seller. In this book Mary described her adventures with wild animals, the natives and the unpredictable forces of nature. Kingsley also climbed Mount Cameroon, a 14, 435 ft peak, which further proves her courageous and adventurous nature. Surprisingly, Kingsley conquered all of these extraordinary adventures in her traditional Victorian clothes that consisted of long skirts, high collars, and fur caps.

She brought more than a hundred different African species back to London including three unknown fish that were later named after her. She also became a speaker about her travels and her discoveries of foreign plants and animals. Mary said the purpose of her trip to Africa was the “pursuit of fish and fetish: fish for Dr. Gunther of the British Museum and fetish to enable [me] to complete [my] father’s study of primitive religion and law.” Kingsley became an activist against colonizing African cultures and wanted to preserve the Africans customs and ways of life.

In 1899 Kingsley set out for South Africa to collect more plants and fresh water fish. She was in Cape Town during the Anglo-Boer war and decided to become a nurse. There was an outbreak of Typhoid and Dysentry while Kingsley was taking care of the soldiers and she caught the enteric fever and died in 1900 at the age of thirty-seven.

Although Kingley was never able to go on her next planned expedition, she was able to contribute her adventures, ideas and discoveries with the rest of the world through her books.

--Carolyn Baum

Selected Bibliography

Travels in West Africa, Congo Francais, Corisco and Cameroons (1897)
West African Studies (1899)
The Story of West Africa. The Story of the Empire Series (1900)

Works Cited

The History Net. http://africanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa011002a.htm
Mary Henrietta Kingsley.
http://23.1911encyclopedia.org/K/KI/KINGSLEY_MARY_HENRIETTA.htm
Mary Henrietta Kingsley.
Mary Henrietta Kingsley.
Biography. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0878937.html