DR JOHN KIRK AND LIVINGSTONE'S ZAMBEZI EXPEDITION, 1858-1864.
Dr John Kirk was taken on Livingstone's Zambezi Expedition of 1858-1864 as 'economic botanist and medical officer', and joined the modest party of six Europeans and a paddle-steamer which sailed for Africa in March 1858 on the Pearl, the Colonial Office steamship, reaching the mouth of the Zambezi in May. Livingstone's party included his younger brother Charles, taken as general assistant, 'moral agent', and photographer, Richard Thornton, the expedition geologist, Thomas Baines, the artist and storekeeper, Commander Norman Bedingfield RN, naval officer and navigator, and George Rae, the engineer, in addition to Kirk.
Livingstone had returned to England in 1856 after a five thousand mile journey in Africa which achieved the first authenticated crossing of sub-Saharan Africa by a European. He returned a hero, wrote his first book, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa in 1857, and was promptly offered a post by the Government as a British consul in the area of Mozambique and territories to the west. He was sponsored by the government to explore the Zambezi and to ascertain the economic potential of the area and ultimately, the possibilites of establishing an English colony in central Africa.
With a base established at the Portugese settlement at Tete, the expedition intended to navigate the Zambezi inland to the Bakota Plateau but by December 1858 had arrived at the Cabora Bassa rapids and found its way to the upper Zambezi barred. Livingstone then changed direction, heading north to explore the River Shire, a tributary of the Zambezi, all the way to its source, Lake Nyasa, now Lake Malawi, the second largest lake in Africa.
The expedition was ill-fated from the start, with Bedingfield resigning in the early months and Baines and Thornton dismissed by Livingstone in 1859. Kirk, who became second-in-command on Bedingfield's resignation, remained on the expedition until 1863. Livingstone, confronting Arab slavers and civil war in the Shire Highlands, received notice of recall in July 1863 and had to abort his mission, returning to Britain in the summer of 1864.
The expedition was the subject of David and Charles Livingstone's Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambezi and its Tributaries; and of The Discovery of the Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa. 1858-1864, published in London in 1865.
Kirk went on to pursue a successful career as Agency Surgeon, Consul and Consul-General at Zanzibar where he remained until his retirement and return to England in 1887.
KIRK'S PHOTOGRAPHS
Born in Forfarshire in December 1832, Kirk graduated from the Medical School at the University of Edinburgh in 1854 and was appointed President Physician at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. He served as an Assistant Physician in the Crimea in 1855 and on his return to England studied botany under the guidance of Sir William Hooker at Kew. Hooker then recommended him to Livingstone as botanist to the Zambezi expedition in 1857.
Both Kirk and Charles Livingstone took cameras on the expedition. The latter, in Kirk's words, 'made a mess of it': 'July 8th [1858] "Mr L. tries the wet collodion process and succeeds to get something having a faint likeness to a picture, but it is a nasty unhealthy work in the dark room in a tropical country and he has no idea of chemistry or of manipulation, I don't anticipate much to come of the Photography. I certainly believe, as I said in London, that the paper process is the only one which at present is worth taking on such an expedition as this. July 9th. Mr L's photogy came nearer to something today, that is, we can see a white shirt or jacket or the shine of a gun barrel, but this is dreadful work one minute in a close suffocating tent, quite dark, and steaming of Acetic acid and Colloid, the next out in the bright sunshine, often without a hat ... Nov 25th .. A little further on we came to the Shibade, the rapid ... Baines sketches here and Mr. L. gets up his photographic apparatus and might have had several splendid views but having accustomed himself to lounging indoors and never exposing himself without an umbrella and felt hat, with all the appurtenances of an English Gentleman of a well regulated family, he cannot stand the fatigue of remaining in the sun and after taking one which he subsequently made a mess of, he knocked off and had a cup of tea under a stone.' (R. Foskett (ed.). The Zambesi Journal and Letters of Dr John Kirk, Edinburgh and London, 1965, pp. 50-51 and 128).
Kirk however, who had practised photography in his youth, and who had a physician's understanding of chemical processes and development, was more successful. He persevered with photography throughout the expedition, learning, experimenting and improvising as he went: 'Nov. 28 1858 ... The Collodion plates of "Wm. Hill Morris" which I brought with me turn out first rate. They are very sensitive and give good negatives. The mistake I made in the first was over exposure ... July 12th 1859 Come down as far as the entrance of Lupata, took several photographs near the island of Mozambique. The dry Collodion process of Mr Hill Norris, the plates of which had been sensitized in England are still perfectly good. They had been in slides for 3 months and exposed to a temperature of 100° several times ... July 23rd. Shoot a number of fine sun birds among the Mimosa trees and take photographs using the citric acid both for sensitising and developing by the waxed paper process. This I feel sure will completely replace the acetic acid for travellers. The experiment is completely successful, even in this first attempt. ... June 7th. [1862] During the absence of the ship I have been forced to keep near at hand, not knowing when she might return. To pass the time I took to photography and found that without a drop of distilled water being used, yet good negatives could be taken on waxed paper. The sensitizing and developing solutions were both made of the Zambezi water unfiltered and the silver in use was the common fused sticks of commerce. Of course, where rain or distilled water could be obtained they are more to be depended on nor would many spring waters be suitable.
Another interesting result was obtained by finding that some of Dr Hill Norris's patent sensitized plates had retained their properties very little diminished through a space of upwards of four years in a tropical country.' (R. Foskett (ed.), op. cit., I-II, pp. 125-453).
Kirk's photographs appear to have been produced outside his official duties. Many were for Kirk's own use ('I have a lot of photographs (negatives) in my trunks which are my own things entirely. They illustrate the botany only and would be of use with the Herbarium.' Letter to Alexander Kirk, 2nd May, 1860) or sent to his family and other friends and colleagues at home, including the photographs of Mary Livingstone's grave packed off to his elder brother from the mouth of the Zambezi in August 1862: 'I sent you by post, besides the letter, a round paste board box containing a few photographic negatives taken at the Doctor's request to show his daughter the house where Mrs L. died and the grave under the big Baobab tree ...' (Letter to Alexander Kirk, 7th August, 1862). Along with Baines's oils and field sketches, Kirk's photographs remain the only substantial visual records of the expedition: 'At the time of the Zambezi expedition significant changes were occuring in visual culture as a result of the growing importance of photography. Where previously an artist's sketches would have been accepted as the most authentic form of representation, it was increasingly clear that photography (in spite of its technical limitations) would soon supersede drawing as the best means of visual reportage. John Kirk and Livingstone's brother Charles both took cameras on the Zambezi expedition and significant tensions emerged between the graphic and the photographic ... Baines sympathetically enumerated 'the difficulties in the way of a photographer' in Africa.
The restlessness of the sitters ... the different conditions of atmosphere and intensity of the sun - the constant dust raised either by our people or the wind - the whirlwinds upsetting the camera ... combine to frustrate the efforts of the operator.
The photographers on the Livingstone expedition did indeed produce only very modest results: Charles Livingstone's attempts were a failure, and Kirk was only able to make a few photographs of large and static objects ... Whatever their source, visual representations were not made purely for the purpose of illustrating narratives; they also formed an important part of the scientific evidence collected by the expedition.' (T. Barringer, 'Fabricating Africa: Livingstone and the Visual Image 1850-1874' in the exhibition catalogue David Livingstone and the Victorian Encounter with Africa, London, 1996, pp. 184-187.)
Kirk's photographs are also the first to be taken in this region of Africa: 'Apart from the historic daguerrotype "Native Women of Sofala" by E. Thiésson (1845), the next indication of any photographic activity in Portugese East Africa was that of Dr. (later Sir) John Kirk during Livingstone's expedition from the Zambezi mouth in 1858 ... He is said to have been one of the first amateur photographers to master the art and originally worked with Talbotypes where he sensitised the paper on which his negatives were taken. The collodion process was introduced when he was an undergraduate and although his cameras were said to be primitive, he must have kept up to date with chemical advances. In Nyasaland in 1862 he 'found that without a drop of distilled water being used, good negatives could be taken on waxed paper'. The "wax negatives" of some of his photographs taken on the Zambezi expedition in 1859 were so well preserved that prints made from them a century later could be effectively reproduced in books ... His first photographs, which are published in Coupland's book on the Zambezi [R. Coupland, Kirk on the Zambezi, A Chapter of African History, Oxford, 1928], were taken in the Quelimane district of Moçambique. Although he was at Shupanga many times and the book illustration may not have been taken on his first visit there on 21st July 1858, the picture of the Portugese fort at Sena on 11th October 1858 is the earliest-known scenic picture of Portugese territory in Africa.' (A.D. Bensusan, Silver Images, History of Photography in Africa, Cape Town, 1966, pp. 30-31.)
The present album includes a selection of Kirk's photographs taken on the expedition from the outset in 1858-9 (including the famous image of the Ma Robert on the Zambezi) until its conclusion, for Kirk, in 1863 on Mozambique. The majority of the other photographs in the album, with the exception of the Australian views (with H. King's blindstamp), are presumably also by Kirk, the Crimean views probably dating to his service there in 1855-56.
One of Kirk's prints (Mary Livingstone's grave, a variation on the present image) was used as a guide to one of the plates in Livingstone's Narrative, but they appear to have remained unpublished until R. Coupland's Kirk on the Zambezi, Oxford, 1928, included six of the prints taken on the expedition. Foskett illustrated The Zambesi Journal and Letters of Dr John Kirk 1858-63, Edinburgh and London, 1965 with twelve of Kirk's prints, and more recently, nine of his Zambezi albumen prints from the collection of the National Library of Scotland were included in the exhibition David Livingstone and the Victorian Encounter with Africa, London and Edinburgh, 1996, (exhibition catalogue nos. 4.36-4.44, five illustrated pp. 186-88.)
Dr. John Kirk (1832-1923)
Livingstone's Zambezi Expedition, 1858-1864. An Album of photographs by Kirk and others including eighteen albumen prints by Kirk taken on the Zambezi Expedition, nineteen views in Sydney and New South Wales by H. King and thirty-one views taken in the Crimea, Poland, France, Switzerland and Madeira by Kirk and various photographers.
Details
Dr. John Kirk (1832-1923)
Livingstone's Zambezi Expedition, 1858-1864.
An Album of photographs by Kirk and others including eighteen albumen prints by Kirk taken on the Zambezi Expedition, nineteen views in Sydney and New South Wales by H. King and thirty-one views taken in the Crimea, Poland, France, Switzerland and Madeira by Kirk and various photographers.
The Zambezi Expedition prints comprise:
(i) 'Tête. Zambezi' (the house in which Kirk and Livingstone stayed)
(ii) 'Governor's House. Tête.'
(iii) The Commandants House at Tête.
(iv) 'Pandanus, Luabo' (inscribed in the negative 'Pandanus-Luabo.Kirk')
(v) The Ma Robert on the Zambezi at Lupata
(vi) 'Zambezi' (The Lupata Gorge)
(vii) African dwellings with a Palm Tree
(viii) 'Grave of Mrs Livingstone'
(ix) 'Portugese Fort. Têtte' (The Portugese Fort at Sena)
(x) African dwellings with a baobab tree in the background (near Sena)
(xi) 'Hippopotamus Trap, River Shire.' (inscribed in the negative 'J Kirk Hippopotamus trap... Shire Lake ...')
(xii) 'Rapids. River Shire.' (inscribed in the negative 'Cataract.R.Shire')
(xiii) 'House built on Piles at mouth of Zambezi.'
(xiv) 'Mozambique' (inscribed in the negative 'Mozambique')
(xv) 'Mozambique'
(xvi) 'Borassus Palm.'
(xvii) Three Europeans and two Africans beneath a large Palm
(xviii) 'Baobab Tree.'
the Kirk prints 6.16 x 8 1/8in. (15.4 x 20.6cm.) and smaller.
the album 9½ x 12in. (24.2 x 30.5cm.) overall.
Livingstone's Zambezi Expedition, 1858-1864.
An Album of photographs by Kirk and others including eighteen albumen prints by Kirk taken on the Zambezi Expedition, nineteen views in Sydney and New South Wales by H. King and thirty-one views taken in the Crimea, Poland, France, Switzerland and Madeira by Kirk and various photographers.
The Zambezi Expedition prints comprise:
(i) 'Tête. Zambezi' (the house in which Kirk and Livingstone stayed)
(ii) 'Governor's House. Tête.'
(iii) The Commandants House at Tête.
(iv) 'Pandanus, Luabo' (inscribed in the negative 'Pandanus-Luabo.Kirk')
(v) The Ma Robert on the Zambezi at Lupata
(vi) 'Zambezi' (The Lupata Gorge)
(vii) African dwellings with a Palm Tree
(viii) 'Grave of Mrs Livingstone'
(ix) 'Portugese Fort. Têtte' (The Portugese Fort at Sena)
(x) African dwellings with a baobab tree in the background (near Sena)
(xi) 'Hippopotamus Trap, River Shire.' (inscribed in the negative 'J Kirk Hippopotamus trap... Shire Lake ...')
(xii) 'Rapids. River Shire.' (inscribed in the negative 'Cataract.R.Shire')
(xiii) 'House built on Piles at mouth of Zambezi.'
(xiv) 'Mozambique' (inscribed in the negative 'Mozambique')
(xv) 'Mozambique'
(xvi) 'Borassus Palm.'
(xvii) Three Europeans and two Africans beneath a large Palm
(xviii) 'Baobab Tree.'
the Kirk prints 6.16 x 8 1/8in. (15.4 x 20.6cm.) and smaller.
the album 9½ x 12in. (24.2 x 30.5cm.) overall.