Mary Kingsley 1862 – 1900

Controversial English explorer, scientific writer and ethnographer Mary Henrietta Kingsley was born on 13^th October 1862 and as a girl of her time, she was not expected to achieve much in her lifetime other than a suitable marriage. Though her formal education was neglected as a result of her gender, Mary had a fascination with the outside world and spent many hours in her father’s well-stocked library. Mary appears to have suffered ill-health, both physical and emotional, never fitting into the social norms of her generation. At age 30, having had to nurse both her parents through ill-health and ultimately death, she remained unmarried.

Her parents demise had a liberating effect on Mary and in 1893 she decided to travel to West Africa, something that no Victorian woman did alone. She landed in Sierra Leone and travelled as far as Angola, living amongst the indigenous populations and learning about their cultures.

During a subsequent trip in Gabon in 1894 she collected fish specimens previously unknown to Western science, three of which were later named after her. She was the first European the climb 4040 metres to reach the summit of Mount Cameroon. By the time she returned to England in 1895 she was attracting the attention of journalists. Mary published two books about her travels in 1897 and 1899 respectively.

Soon after the South African War (Anglo-Boer War) broke out in 1899 Mary volunteered to go to SA and help in any capacity, but more especially in the role of a nurse. She was the daughter of a doctor and had had some medical experience during her travels in West Africa. Initially the British War Office declined her request as they felt the war would be over quickly. Mary had her doubts however and travelled to Germany to do a nursing course there. When the War Office realized that there would be many British casualties and Boer Prisoners of War, they asked Mary to go to South Africa at short notice.

Keen to travel throughout South Africa when the war was over, Mary was particularly interested in collecting freshwater fish from the Orange River for scientific study in London. She also planned another adventure in West Africa on her way back to England. These plans were not to be as it turned out.

Mary boarded a troopship in Liverpool bound for South Africa on 11^th March 1900. The ship docked in Cape Town on 28^th March 1900 and Mary reported to General Wilson, the Principal Medical Officer at the Castle, without delay. Wilson told her about the catastrophic situation developing in Simon’s Town amongst the Boer POWs held there. He requested she report there for duty.

In England Mary had been a friend of Rudyard Kipling and his family, who were resident in Woodstock, at the time of her arrival in Cape Town. The Kipling family respected her enormously and Rudyard called her the bravest woman he knew.

Upon her arrival in Simon’s Town Mary took a room at the British Hotel and then made her way to Palace Barracks, which was serving as a hospital for the Boer POW’s. Mary found a humanitarian crisis with large numbers of Boers having contracted fatal “camp fever” (also known as enteric fever or typhoid). Measles and other diseases were rampant too.

Palace Barracks had been built around 1785 as a private home, but over time, it had become very dilapidated and was most unsuitable as a hospital. Dr G. Carré, the Principal Medical Officer, had just arrived in Simon’s Town, as had his other two nursing sisters. Medical supplies were very limited and narrow iron beds covered in hessian sacking stood in the four rooms designated as wards. Mary wrote to her friend in England: “I never struck such a rocky bit of the valley of the shadow of death in all my days as the Palace Hospital. There are the never-to-be-forgotten bugs and lice. The Palace supplies bugs free of charge”.

Two more doctors and three more sisters arrived as did more medical supplies, but conditions remained dangerous. Mary wrote: “All this work here, the stench, the washing, the enemas, the bedpans, the blood, is my world”. More than 100 men were placed under Mary’s sole care. She herself was not in good health, but she took her duties very seriously leading Dr Carré to later say that she “turned a mortuary into a sanatorium”. Enteric fever continued to rage through the hospital and many men died. Patients brought to the Palace were filled with anger towards their British captors, but Mary’s kind dedication led even these hardened men to say that they “even forgave her for being an English woman”.

Despite being a teetotaller, Mary thought to take precautions with her health, believing that Cape wines would boost her physical well-being and morale and that smoking would offer some protection against infection. Sadly, this was not the case and she too caught enteric fever. Dr Carré performed an operation to try to save her, but she died of heart failure and enteric fever on 3^rd June 1900, just over two months after her arrival in Simon’s Town.

Aware that she was dying, Mary asked to be buried at sea. Her body was moved to the Main Army Barracks and the cortege proceeded to the Town Jetty the following day. The large teak coffin was drawn on a gun carriage, escorted by the Fourth West Yorkshire Regiment playing the Dead March and a detachment of the Royal Artillery. All along the route crowds gathered, lining the street. A service was conducted on the Town Pier by Rev. J.P. Legg, rector of Simon’s Town and acting military chaplain. Then several hospital staff and Rev G.F.C. van Lingen and Mr F.H.S. Hugo (representing the Dutch Reformed Church community and their appreciation of Mary’s care) got onto the torpedo boat, HMS Thrush, together with a firing party from the Royal Marine Light Infantry.

Mary was committed to the sea some way beyond Cape Point in a solemn funeral ceremony, swiftly followed by consternation on the part of the mourners. The coffin had not been weighted sufficiently and bobbed off into the ocean to the horror of the funeral party. Mary’s friends and family believed however that the incident would have been the source of much amusement to her, for though she had professed to believe in a Higher Power, Mary had questioned the role of Christian missionary endeavours in Africa, believing them to be of questionable benefit to indigenous Africans.

The ensuing attempt to sink the coffin saw the lifeboats of HMS Thrush launched and eventually the wayward casket was captured, secured to a spare anchor and committed to the deep.

When the Simon’s Town Cottage Hospital was opened on Saturday, 1^st April 1905 for the admission of civilian patients, one of its four wards was named the “Nurse Kingsley Ward”. (This hospital moved to Fish Hoek in later years and is today’s False Bay Hospital).

The ceremonial funeral and honours afforded the unmarried 37 year-old Mary were rare and serve as testament to the impact she had made during her brief, but traumatic 66 day mission in Simon’s Town. Long before modern technology, modes of transport, modern medicine and “googling”, Mary Kingsley proved herself a fiercely independent and worthy humanitarian.

Information from the Simon’s Town Historical Society Bulletin and Mary Kingsley, Imperial Adventures by Dea Birkett, 1992.

Cathy Salter, Curator, Simon’s Town Museum, 26^th August 2021

Mary Kingsley

Mary - Kingsley

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