Mary Henrietta Kingsley (13 October 1862 – 3 June 1900) was an English explorer, travel writer, and ethnographic observer known for her journeys through West Africa and for her influential writings on African societies and colonial policy.

Between 1893 and 1895 she travelled widely in regions of present-day Sierra Leone, Angola, Gabon, and Cameroon, often journeying alone in areas rarely visited by Europeans. During these expeditions she collected zoological specimens for the British Museum and documented local religious practices, social customs, and political systems.

Kingsley later published two widely read books, Travels in West Africa (1897) and West African Studies (1899), which combined travel narrative with ethnographic observation and commentary on British imperial policy. Her writings made her one of the most prominent European commentators on West Africa at the end of the nineteenth century.

Early life

Kingsley was born in Islington, London on 13 October 1862, the daughter and oldest child of physician, traveller and writer George Kingsley and Mary Bailey. The family moved to Highgate less than a year after her birth, the same home where her brother Charles George R. ("Charley") Kingsley was born in 1866; in 1879 they moved to Bexleyheath in Kent and in 1886 to Cambridge.

Kingsley's beliefs about cultural and economic imperialism are complex and widely debated by scholars today. Though, on the one hand, she regarded African people and cultures as those who needed protection and preservation, she also believed in the necessity of indirect rule and the adoption of European culture and technology by indigenous populations, insisting that there was some work in West Africa that had to be completed by white men. Yet in Studies in West Africa she writes: "Although a Darwinian to the core, I doubt if evolution in a neat and tidy perpendicular line, with Fetish at the bottom and Christianity at the top, represents the true state of affairs." Other, more acceptable, beliefs were variously perceived and used in Western European society – by traders, colonists, women's rights activists and others – and, articulated as they were in great style, helped shape popular perception of "the African" and "his" land.

Writing and publications

Kingsley wrote two books based on her travels in West Africa: Travels in West Africa (1897) and West African Studies (1899).Travels in West Africa was an immediate commercial success and brought her wide public attention, while both works established her reputation among scholars and commentators interested in African societies and colonial policy.

Some newspapers declined to review her work. The Times, under its pro-imperialist editor Flora Shaw, refused to publish a review of Travels in West Africa. Scholars have sometimes attributed this reception to Kingsley's criticism of aspects of missionary activity and colonial policy. However, Kingsley herself supported the activities of European traders in West Africa and advocated systems of indirect rule, positions that complicate simple interpretations of her views as anti-imperialist.

Travels in West Africa was widely noted for its humour, detailed observation, and lively narrative style. Although often presented as an adventure narrative, Kingsley described her purpose in more scholarly terms, "My motive for going to West Africa was study; this study was that of native ideas and practices in religion and law."

She explained that the project was also intended to complete research begun by her father, the physician and traveller George Kingsley, whose work had been left unfinished at his death. Kingsley later wrote that her father’s work had seemed to promise "a career of great brilliancy and distinction – a promise which, unfortunately, was never entirely fulfilled".

Reflecting on her approach to writing about the people she encountered, Kingsley emphasised the importance of portraying individuals sympathetically. "It is merely that I have the power of bringing out in my fellow-creatures, white or black, their virtues, in a way honourable to them and fortunate for me."

Kingsley's books combined travel narrative with ethnographic observation and commentary on West African societies, religion, and colonial administration. Through these works she became one of the most widely read European writers on West Africa at the end of the nineteenth century.

Death

thumb|right|The funeral cortege of Mary Kingsley at the pier in Simonstown: 1900

After the outbreak of the Second Boer War, Kingsley travelled to Cape Town on the SS Moor in March 1900, Various reform associations were formed in her honour and helped facilitate governmental change. The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine founded an honorary medal in her name. In Sierra Leone, the Mary Kingsley Auditorium at the Institute of African Studies, Fourah Bay College (University of Sierra Leone), was named after her.

A BBC radio documentary broadcast on 31 October 1933, presented by Clifford Collinson, commemorated her voyages.

Published works

Books

  • Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons, London: Macmillan & Co., 1897
  • West African Studies, London: Macmillan & Co., 1899
  • The Story of West Africa, London: Horace Marshall & Son, 1899 (The Story of the Empire Series)

Articles

  • Travels on the western coast of equatorial Africa. Scottish Geographical Magazine. 12 (3): 113–124. 1896.

<gallery>

File:Mary H Kingsley Wellcome L0046617.jpg|alt=Black-and-white head and shoulders portrait of a Mary Kingsley wearing a high-collared Victorian blouse or dress with a flowery hat.|Photographic portrait from Kingsley's 1901 book West African Studies, published by Macmillan.

File:Portrait of Mary Kingsley.jpg|Photographic portrait - profile

File:Portrait of Mary Kingsley (Ibibio, Nigeria), World Museum Liverpool (2).JPG|Carved wooden portrait bust (Ibibio sculptor, Nigeria), World Museum Liverpool

File:Ctenopoma kingsleyae.jpg|Plate depicting the fish species Ctenopoma kingsleyae - a climbing gourami named for Kingsley

File:Pseudictator kingsleyae Juhel, 2015 Holotype (17753026841).jpg|Holotype of the Longhorn beetle species Pseudictator kingsleyae - specific name honouring Kingsley

File:MARY KINGSLEY - 22 Southwood Lane Highgate London N6 5EE.jpg|"Avalon", 22 Southwood Lane, Highgate: Kingsley's childhood home

File:MARY KINGSLEY 1862-1900 Traveller and ethnologist lived here as a child.jpg|Blue plaque erected in 1975 by Greater London Council at "Avalon"

</gallery>

See also

  • List of female adventurers

References

Citations

Sources

Further reading

  • (A fictional account involving Mary Kingsley).
  • A study of 18th Century Natural History - includes Charles Waterton, John Hanning Speke, Henry Seebohm and Mary Kingsley. Contains colour and black and white reproductions.
  • (The opening short story, Fish, is a fictional account of Kingsley's life)
  • (An interesting look at women, race, and civilization, though not directly related to Mary Kingsley).
  • Mary Henrietta Kingsley Papers (MS 1485). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.
  • Mary H. Kingsley, 1862-1900 at the Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University