Description

Richardson (1809-51) was educated for the evangelical ministry and in adult life it was his ambition to propogate Christianity and suppress the slave trade in Africa. He attached himself to the English Anti-Slavery Society and under its auspices travelled to Malta where he edited a newspaper and studied the Arabic language and geography with a view to systematic exploration. In 1845 he made an expedition from Tunis through Tripoli in Libya to Ghadames and Ghat in the middle of the Sahara where he collected information about the Tuareg, returning to Tripoli nine months later. This account of his expedition was published in two volumes in 1848 and is illustrated throughout. He succeeded in convincing the British Government to equip a further expedition to the Sudan and Lake Chad and in 1850 Richardson went to Ghat for the second time, his party becoming the first Europeans to cross the stony elevated plain of the Hammada. In March 1851 he died from an unknown illness in Ngurutua, a six-day journey from Kukawa near Lake Chad. His travel notes and diaries from this second expedition were published posthumously as Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa (1853), and also a further book Travels in Morocco (1859).