John Kirk (explorer)

Sir John Kirk GCMG, KCB, FRS (19 December 1832 – 15 January 1922) was a British physician, naturalist, companion to explorer David Livingstone, and a British administrator in Zanzibar, East Africa, where he was instrumental in ending the slave trade in that country, with the aid of his political assistant, Ali bin Saleh bin Nasser Al-Shaiban, and Alexander Mackay, a missionary in Zanzibar.

He was born on 19 December 1832 in Barry, Angus, near Arbroath, Scotland, the second of four children of the Rev John Kirk (1795-1858) and his wife Christian Guthrie Carnegie (1803-1865).

[2] Kirk arrived in southern Somalia in 1873 during a period of great economic prosperity with the region being dominated by the Geledi Sultanate and the Hiraab Imamate.

Roughly 20 large dhows were docked in both Mogadishu and Merka respectively filled with grain produced from the farms of the Geledi in the interior.

[8] He stated that Sultan Ahmed Yusuf controlled a vast territory stretching from Mogadishu to the Jubba region and had 50,000 troops at his command.

[14] One of his Vice-Consuls, appointed in 1883, was Lieutenant Charles Stewart Smith, who had earlier served in the anti-slaving patrols launched from HMS London.

For years he negotiated with Sultan Barghash, with the help of Al-Shaibany, gaining his confidence and promising to help enrich the East African domain through legitimate commerce.

It is a role that Al-Shaibany proved to be crucial in aiding the British to reach a settlement with Sultan Barghash to abolish slavery in Zanzibar.

[citation needed] He introduced a very distinct and pretty species of orchid to the United Kingdom, subsequently named Angraecum scottianum.

Examples include "Hamed bin Muhammed, slave and ivory trader", "Female retainers of Swahili household in gala dress", and "A panoramic view of Zanzibar".