William Jervis Livingstone

William Jervis Livingstone was the manager of the Magomero Estate in Nyasaland owned by A L Bruce Estates Ltd and was murdered - beheaded in front of his wife and two small children in 1915 during the uprising against colonial rule led by John Chilembwe. Livingstone, from the Isle of Lismore, was born in Argyllshire, Scotland in 1865 and appointed as manager of Magomero in 1893. Although he experimented with growing coffee and later cotton, the estate was not a financial success and Livingstone imposed increasingly harsh labour demands on the estate workers there. He was also accused of the mistreatment treatment of those workers, but both the excessive work demands and his tough regime were the results of the pressures for financial success originating from Alexander Livingstone Bruce, a director and major shareholder in A L Bruce Estates Ltd, who also lived in Nyasaland. Bruce considered independent African churches were subversive, and instructed Livingstone to destroy the churches that Chilembwe built on the Magomero estate. Chilembwe's grievances about colonial rule and the oppression of African estate workers came to focus on William Jervis Livingstone and, when he initiated his revolt on 23 January 1915, Chilembwe ordered some of his men to attack the A L Bruce Estates, to kill all European men and to return with Livingstone's head. Livingstone and three others, including Duncan MacCormick also from Lismore and an African servant were killed at Magomero. William Livingstone's wife Kitty and her female house guests and children were luckily all unharmed. In the aftermath of uprising, Livingstone and the Estate of Magomer was blamed for the harsh and unsatisfactory conditions on the A L Bruce Estates. The actual owner of the estate, Alexander Livingstone Bruce escaped censure, despite all orders coming from him. More recently, William Livingstone's character has been re-examined against the backdrop of the huge estate he was tasked to run for his employers and, although a hot tempered man, he is also regarded as reacting to the impossible demands made by Alexander Livingstone Bruce.

William Jervis Livingstone was born on 8 March 1865 at Bachuil,Isle of Lismore, Argyllshire, in Scotland. His father, Alexander Livingstone (1815-1906), was a Baptist minister and his mother Jessie (née McPherson, 1824–99) was Alexander’s second wife. Alexander Livingstone had seven children, of whom three died as infants and two, including William’s older half-brother, in their twenties. Only William and his younger brother Thomas survived into the 20th century. In 1908, William married Katherine (née MacLachlan) and they had three children, one of whom died as an infant.

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