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David Livingstone 1840 -1874
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David Livingstone was born in Blantyre which is near to Glasgow. If you go out of Peebles on the Glasgow road and travel west you will go through the town of Carluke. Before you get to Glasgow you will come very near to Blantyre.
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David's mother and father were both Christians and David spent time reading things from the Bible. He got a prize for learning one of the psalms by heart. Some of what he learned is written underneath in blue.
You do not need to read all the way through it if you do not want to, but look at the question underneath.
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Psalm 119
1 Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.
2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.
3 They also do no iniquity: they walk in his ways.
4Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.
5 O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes.
6 Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto thy commandments.
7 I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous judgements.
8 I will keep thy statutes: O forsake me not utterly.
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Do you think that you could learn this? It is difficult because it is written in old English and perhaps David understook it better than we do. But I have only written 8 verses and there are 176 verses altogether.
David did make 5 mistakes but he did better than anyone else and I think he deserved his prize don't you?
Picture of some shells
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David loved exploring and he used to go out and collect flowers and shells. When he was grown up he went exploring in Africa.
When David was 10 he went to work in a cotton mill. This was hard work for a young boy. Many people thought that it was wrong for children to go to work when they were so young but at that time many children did.
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Picture of a spindle
Later the British government passed a law that young children should not be sent out to work. David's job was to look after a machine called a spinning jenny. When cotton is being spun, small weak threads are twisted together to make a thick strong thread which is wound onto a spindle. The spinning jenny can wind up a lot of spindles at the same time.The strong threads are then put on a loom and woven into cloth.
At the end of the first week David was paid. What will you buy when you start work and earn your first week's wages? David wanted to learn as much as he could so he bought a book.
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When David finished work at the end of the day a school master came into the mill to teach the children. Sometimes David took his book and put it on top of the spinning jenny so he could read it when he was working. It must have been very difficult to learn like this because when a spinning jenny is running it makes an awful clatter!
When David was older he went to a Missionary Society. He used to listen to talks about what missionaries were doing and he gave some of the money he earned to help them in their work.
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