Jacob Wainwright (born Yamuza;[1] c. 1859 – April 1892) was an African man who worked as an attendant for the explorer David Livingstone.

Wainwright and two other Africans, Abdullah Susi and James Chuma, resolved to bring his body the 1,000 miles (1,600 km) to the British consulate at Bagamoyo[7] in Zanzibar.

He was dispatched with the body for England, picking up with the Peninsular and Oriental liner the SS Malwa at Aden,[13][14] and with the help of the explorer's son Thomas from Alexandria onwards, Wainwright guarded Livingstone's coffin on its journey to Britain.

Following Livingstone's death Wainwright stayed in England at Kessingland, Suffolk and travelled across the country addressing meetings of the Church Missionary Society.

[21] Wainwright died at the Urambo Mission in April 1892 [22] as a result of burns and scalds from falling onto a fire and upturning a pot of water.

One diary that detailed the bringing of Livingston'e body to the Swahili coast for repatriation to Great Britain was published by the Hakluyt Society in 2007.

[24] The diary is valued, as few indigenous Black African servants of white European explorers are known to have written about their experiences.