Sir John Kirk was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 physician, naturalist, companion to explorer David Livingstone

David Livingstone

David Livingstone was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr...

, and British administrator in Zanzibar

Zanzibar

Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...

. He was born in Barry, near Arbroath, Scotland and is buried in St. Nicholas's churchyard in Sevenoaks, Kent, England. He earned his medical degree from the University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

. He was a keen botanist throughout his life and was highly regarded by successive directors of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew: Sir William Hooker, Joseph Dalton Hooker

Joseph Dalton Hooker

Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI, CB, MD, FRS was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. Hooker was a founder of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend...

 and William Thistleton-Dyer.

After the death of Livingston, Kirk pledged to continue Livingston's work to end the East African slave trade. For years he negotiated with the ruler of Zanzibar

Zanzibar

Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...

, Sultan Bargash, gaining his confidence and promising to help enrich the East African domain through legitimate commerce. The Sultan banned slave trading in 1873 and by 1885, the region was larger and more profitable. Unfortunately, after the Berlin Conference, the British Government forced Kirk as British Consul in Zanzibar to drop the Sultan as part of the "Scramble for Africa

Scramble for Africa

The Scramble for Africa, also known as the Race for Africa or Partition of Africa was a process of invasion, occupation, colonization and annexation of African territory by European powers during the New Imperialism period, between 1881 and World War I in 1914...

".

Further reading

• Anonymous 1908 Ibis Jubilee Supplement
• Dritsas, Lawrence. 2005. "From Lake Nyassa to Philadelphia: A Geography of the Zambesi Expedition, 1858-64." British Journal for the History of Science 38, no. 1: 35-52.
• Foskett, Reginald, ed. 1965. The Zambesi Journal and Letters of Dr. John Kirk, 1858-63. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd.
• Ferguson, Niall. 2003. Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World. London: Penguin Books. pp. 156, 157-8, 236-7, 239.
• Liebowitz, Daniel. 1999. The Physician and the Slave Trade: John kirk, the Livingstone Expeditions, and the Crusade against Slavery in East Africa. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.
• Martelli, George. 1970. Livingstone's River: A History of the Zambezi Expedition, 1858-1864. London: Chatto & Windus.