Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer

by Tim Jeal

  One day in early June, Dolly called at Liberal Unionist headquarters and learned that the sitting MP for North Lambeth, Sir Charles Fraser, had just resigned. Though time was short, she managed to get Stanley adopted as the Liberal Unionist candidate several weeks before polling day. Since the area was a rough one, despite being close to Westminster, Dolly should have warned Henry to expect some ferocious heckling from the supporters of the Radical candidate, Alderman Francis Coldwells. But she did not, and though Stanley emphasized in his printed address to the electors that his `strongest sympathies were with the working classes',' the hostility at his first big public meeting came as a great shock. The barracking was so loud that he was reduced to silence and could only glare at his tormentors. Dolly burst into tears, rose to her feet and then sank back into her seat. Her distress briefly calmed the shouters, but after she cried out, `When all of you are dead, the name of Stanley will live,' derisive laughter filled the hall.'° Nevertheless, Dolly spoke at several meetings after this." Stanley eventually lost the election by the narrowest of margins - 130 votes - not a bad result for a man who had refused to canvass. Thomas Guthrie, a young Liberal Unionist, returned to Richmond Terrace with Stanley in a hansom cab after hearing the result declared, and said later that Stanley had not cared at all."

  For someone of Stanley's temperament, politics could only be uncongenial. Indispensable to all politicians is the ability to brush off insults and not take them personally, so that yesterday's enemy can become tomorrow's friend, and no falling out need be final. For a man of Stanley's sensitivities, tactical friendships, and all forms of dissembling, were impossible. Being used to exercise command rather than negotiate alliances, he lacked the easy manner and clubbable smiles with which politicians mask naked ambition. Yet though Dorothy was intelligent, her need to stop her husband returning to Africa, and her own passion for politics, drove her to urge him to stand a second time, against all common sense. During the period of their first courtship, Dorothy had admitted that she found politics `dangerously fascinating', and had said `if I were a man I would throw myself into the arena'." Perhaps her father's less than dazzling period as an MP accounted for her longing to associate herself with a more successful career. Whatever the cause - and though Stanley made it very clear that he did not want to stand again at the next election - she put him under such immense pressure that he finally conceded. Several times during the brief 1892 campaign it had enraged Dolly that Henry had done so little to win the electors' hearts.14 Yet to ask strangers to like and vote for him was more than he could ever do. Rejection would only be tolerable if he could tell himself he had not really tried. Though he never explained this to Dorothy, he agreed to stand again only on certain conditions. He would never visit `house to house', and would only speak at formal meetings. `Never will I degrade myself by asking a man for his vote."'

  If the next general election had been called swiftly, Henry's obligation to contest the seat would not have weighed on him so heavily. But an election would not be called until 118 9 5. Worse than that - with the life of the Liberal ministry depending on the fragile co-operation of the divided Irish nationalists - a dissolution seemed imminent many times, obliging Stanley to make speeches in readiness, time and again. `If I am defeated,' he told Dorothy, `I hope it will be an overwhelming majority that will forever prove to you my incapacity as a candidate.' Even before a second campaign was in sight, Stanley was complaining to her about `the cesspool of slander & calumny' surrounding the House of Commons like `a moat'. He dreaded being heckled in the street, and wrote reproachfully: `I wonder that you have cared to put anyone you profess to respect at such a disadvantage ... I have still a large capacity for the quieter enjoyments, but it seems that until I am past enjoying anything, my life is to be wasted in struggle."6

  The 1892- election had come at a difficult time in the Stanleys' marriage. They possessed dissimilar temperaments and had very different interests and needs. So to keep Henry hanging about in London was sure to cause disharmony. His main desire - failing a return to Africa - was to have plenty of time to himself and `to avoid nonsensical society duties'.'7 `Just because a person sends a polite invitation to dinner, or tea, or to a reception, must one,' he groaned, `cut out that period of existence from this short life?"' When not relaxing and walking, he told Dolly, they should be able to read, think or work, whenever they wished. To make his point, he divided humanity into bees and butterflies - he being a bee that liked to pass time purposefully, rather than frittering it as a social butterfly. `I might stand it [London society] for a week, perhaps a month, but the utter waste of life would soon begin to present itself as ... an accusing phantom of lost days & weeks.`9

  Dorothy countered reasonably enough that entertaining friends was an essential part of `home life [which] you have never experienced ... I maintain that to shut yourself up - a recluse ... will be bad for you morally and mentally.' Dolly enjoyed the company of intellectuals and reformers like Herbert Spencer, William Lecky, Thomas Huxley, William Gladstone and John Morley, `who can hardly be called butterflies'. `I want to know the best, to learn from them.' So why should he prefer `dark sepulchral retirement', she demanded.2O If Henry and Dolly had been spending as much time in the country as in London, he would have felt happier. His desire to be quiet and solitary led Dorothy to tell him that his commander's `life of solitude and action' had never obliged him `to "trim" with - or make allowances for people'. `Family life,' she insisted, `is different.'2'

  When they had rows, Dolly tended to shout and lose control whereas Stanley sank into himself, presenting a facade so cold that his wife became ever shriller. Because of his many childhood rejections, Henry found it hard to endure criticism, especially when several people were present. Yet when Dolly lost her temper she could `scold him like a schoolboy', whoever might hear." It also upset him that she often interrupted him at dinner parties and spoke without thinking." `Dolly opens her rosebud and out pours her thoughts & views & opinions, while I must be silent ... My dear, let us hope ... that these jars may be only temporary.1z4

  As 118gz progressed, Stanley found himself tied into a maddening political process, forcing him to be pleasant to numerous people he would otherwise have avoided. Nor had the longed-for child been conceived, either in Australia or in England, and with every passing month a pregnancy seemed less likely. In letters to one another, Dorothy and Stanley called this hoped-for child `the General'. 'Possibly, God in his mercy will send the General,' Dolly had written shortly before Henry broke his leg.25 Then Uganda burst into the news again, late in 1189 z, thoroughly unsettling Henry.

  In July a year earlier, Sir William Mackinnon had received a devastating report from Uganda, written by an unknown army officer whom the company had sent out in r 890. Although Captain Frederick Lugard had thwarted the Germans in Uganda, and his tiny force had crushed a coup mounted by supporters of French missionaries, the young officer had insisted that unless Mackinnon financed a garrison strong enough to keep out the dangerous Kabarega, and the King of Ankole, Uganda would be lost. Already facing vast additional expenditure, Mackinnon suffered another blow: Lord Salisbury, the prime minister, who had promised government funding for the East African railway, changed his mind. Stanley wrote sadly: `Africa contains sufficient germs of good to resist the oppression [of the slave trade] ... but it cannot be done without the railway.'z6

  The Ugandan crisis peaked in October r89z, when Stanley joined forces with the recently returned Captain Lugard in a `Save Uganda' campaign got up by Mackinnon.17 Lugard and Stanley spoke in numerous cities, claiming that a great human disaster would follow if the government (now led by Mr Gladstone) decided not to tide over the Imperial British East Africa Company and help finance the railway. Their prophecy of a bloodbath if the company were to leave Uganda attracted such wide coverage in the press that Gladstone and his cabinet were forced to relive the nightmare of being held responsible for Gordon's death. They remembered all too clearly Bishop Han- nington's grisly murder
in Uganda, and the torture and execution of many Christian converts. What if it were true, as Lugard claimed, that the bankruptcy of Mackinnon's company would lead the banished Muslims to return? Would they then massacre the missionaries and their supporters, as Lugard was predicting?" It must have been galling for Stanley when Captain Lugard - who had killed twenty times more Africans than Stanley had shot on Bumbireh - was hailed everywhere as an English knight errant: the chivalrous rescuer of British missionaries from a tyrannical African despot. But, like the general public, Stanley was also won over by Lugard's haggard good looks and crumpled khaki jacket.z'9

  Within weeks, rapturous support for Lugard in the press brought Gladstone's cabinet to the point of collapse, enabling the imperialist Rosebery to bring the prime minister and his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir William Harcourt, to their knees over Uganda. Gladstone had no alternative but to extend a financial lifeline to Mackinnon and to accept that Uganda would become a British colony. This was the only way he could win for his administration sufficient time to achieve Home Rule for Ireland. From now on it would be Britain's policy, even under a Liberal government, to take over Uganda, secure the Nile sources, recapture the Sudan, keep out the French and Germans, and rule Egypt permanently. Stanley was proud to reflect that without his 1876 appeal for missionaries to go to Buganda, and without his long partnership with Mackinnon, African colonial history would have been very different. Few people can claim that events they have set in train have helped transform a great political party and changed their nation's intentions towards a whole continent, but from r 892 the workhouse boy could do just that, as could the self-made shipping tycoon. But Lord Rosebery's victory within Gladstone's cabinet brought an agonizing decision for Stanley personally.

  In December 118gz, Sir William surprised and moved Henry by offering him the Chief Administrator's post one last time, having hinted in late November that he might do so. At first Stanley had kept this possibility from Dorothy, but when the offer came, he had no choice but to discuss it with her. Having learned nothing from his unhappiness during the recent election, she insisted that he refuse Sir William's offer, on the preposterous grounds that because the Liberal cabinet was split on Uganda, a general election might be imminent. It would therefore be dishonourable, she told him, to let down the North Lambeth Unionists. Furthermore, he had given her his word that he would stand again. Most reluctantly, Stanley wrote letters of refusal to his honorary father, Sir William Mackinnon and to his confidant, Alexander Bruce, telling them, with a brusqueness that could not hide his raw emotion: `I cannot go to East Africa, for the reason that I feel myself pledged to N. Lambeth.' To Bruce he added a more truthful postscript: `I am looking for a defeat, and if it will only be crushing enough, it will relieve me from Mrs Stanley's pressure and desire to get me into Parliament.'30 If the election could only come quickly enough, he might still be able to return to Africa - or so he thought. But Gladstone soldiered on, against all odds, until 11894, and after that Lord Rosebery clung to power for fifteen more precarious months. Writing to Alexander Bruce, Dorothy acknowledged that `Stanley longs for work' and she promised `not to be an obstacle', but when she wrote about what was `owed' to the North Lambeth Liberal Unionist supporters, it became obvious that she would never let her husband go.31

  Though Stanley permitted Dorothy to deny him his very last chance to redeem himself in Africa after all the mud-slinging over the Rear Column, he felt bitterly angry with her. There would now be no crowning final chapter to his African career. On Christmas Eve - the day after he had written his refusals to Bruce and Mackinnon - he felt desperate enough to leave England over the holiday season, for Pau, a small town in the foothills of the Pyrenees on the French side, taking his valet to look after him. W. J. Hawkes had been with him since June 1 189 I, and was intelligent and undemanding." In London, Dolly felt `blank & melancholy', and deeply embarrassed to have to explain the sudden departure of her husband just before Christmas.33 `People seem to think it odd my not being with you. I have to say airily that I am soon going to join you. I wonder whether you feel it odd to leave your Dolly!'34 Stanley wrote to her very briefly on the 27th, saying he was glad to have come away, and ended much more formally than usual: `Yours affectionately, Henry M. Stanley.'35 On 3 January, alarmed by his anger, Dolly wrote to Bruce claiming, disingenuously: `if he [Stanley] decided he ought to go ... I would not say a word to dissuade him.';`

  On 3o December 189z, Stanley wrote with almost saintly forbearance: `I forget & forgive ... I hope that this coming year will unite us closer and bring us the General - the long looked for - upon whose soft lips, you and I, please God, may re-plight our vows, and re-pledge our love.';' Now that he had no career - other than an unwanted parliamentary candidacy - all Henry's hopes for future happiness hung upon the birth of a son or daughter. Still unable to believe his friend would throw away such a sublime opportunity, Bruce wrote wishing him a Happy New Year, and urging him one last time to choose between being an MP and becoming Britain's East African proconsul. In reality, the moment of decision had passed. In the same letter Bruce confessed that Mackinnon's health was failing."

  In Pau, Stanley relished having time to himself. `The absolute peace is delicious ... I have banished London & its worries from my mind ... I am deep in books & papers and these give me quite a sufficient inter- est.'39 On 3 January, after almost two weeks away, Stanley wrote a deeply felt letter to Dolly. He described doing something that would have been quite impossible in London - partly because of the pressure of social events, and partly because he was always recognized in public places. Quite simply he had sat on a bench in a park and listened to an outdoor concert. Around him everyone was totally absorbed; `they had forgotten their businesses ... their souls were whirling about in the air, dancing to the measures, while their grosser selves stood passive ... and I was one of these, dearest; and I looked into my heart for you and cried, Why? Why? Oh, why?' Also in this letter, he described how desperate he felt when she talked at him incessantly and organized his time. He explained that all his needs could `not be gratified ... even by you'. But this, he added, need not be a disaster. `What is to be done? We must bear & forebear ... I must try to make you happy, provided it is not asked at the cost of my unhappiness.'41

  A week later he wrote venting his deep irritation with the pointless `struggle' of an election. But instead of letting him withdraw his candidature, Dolly wrote back full of election plans: `This-afternoon I have 75 ladies to tea. We are bound to win.'41 Stanley replied sadly en route home from Biarritz: `As for your political arrangements, make them as you please. I shall be ready to assist any decent work ... but no silly personal canvassing ... I am not well at all. 141

  No sooner was he back in London than it dawned on Henry how misguided he had been to give in to Dorothy. The great philanthropist's health continued to decline, and a repeat of his offer was already impossible. On zz June 1893, Sir William died. He had been killed, Stanley believed, by `depression of spirits' caused by the way in which successive governments had used his company to hold back the Germans, free of charge to the British tax-payer. Yet as Stanley stood by his friend's coffin in the Burlington Hotel, in the tycoon's spacious suite, where they had often sat and planned, he must have known that his own refusal to go out to Africa and push on the company's work had also contributed to Sir William's final collapse.43 `The New Year has just begun,' he had written to Mackinnon from Pau. `If I could pray for anything ... my first thought would be of you. Friends are few, but you I would wish to cling to while I have life.' A few days later, he had told his honorary father: `Your time will come yet, and the full measure of your work will be yet known and trumpeted ...'44 His memory of these words must have sounded very hollowly to him now.

  At this time of disappointment and marital disharmony, the nowwidowed May Sheldon announced that she intended to become an African explorer. This must have suggested to Stanley that if he had only remained single and then married this courageous woman, she wou
ld have rejoiced to go out with him to Africa as wife of the Administrator General.45 `Africa,' wrote May, thinking of Stanley, Stairs and Nelson, `is a most fascinating wild mistress. She gets a tenacious hold on most persons; bewitching, magnetic, irresistible ... and once experienced is never lulled into forgetfulness. 141 Stanley could only have agreed.

  William Stairs had gone out to Africa in 1891, and in June 1892. had succumbed to haematuric fever, after securing Katanga for King Leopold. In December 18gz, Robert Nelson died of dysentery, while working for Mackinnon's company in the Kikuyu District of East Africa. Early deaths seemed to be awaiting all Stanley's friends and associates. After Mackinnon's demise, Alexander Bruce died of influenza in November 118 Two months earlier, Dr Parke had died of a brain tumour. Stanley learned, when it was too late, that Parke had been ill and poor for years. After the funeral, Jephson wrote his old boss a stinging letter, asking him why he had not shown more interest in the lives of his officers. Jephson then disclosed that he himself had a shadow on a lung, and was suffering from heart disease. Shocked, Stanley asked him why he and Parke had not confided in him. After all, in consecutive years, he had invited both to stay with him in Switzerland, and had written introductions to their books about Africa. Yet Jephson brushed this aside, insisting that one only tells a friend one's troubles `if one senses their sympathy'.48 With his marriage under strain at the time, Stanley was hurt deeply by Jephson's criticisms.