1841-19O4
Journalist And Explorer

Welsh Workhouse. Originally known as John Rowlands, Henry Morton Stanley was born on 28 January 1841 in Denbigh, Wales. An illegitimate child, Stanley's early life was unhappy, as he was fostered by reluctant relatives and spent some time in the St. Asaph Workhouse. Although Stanley would construct elaborate tales of persecution in the workhouse and narrate a tale of daring escape from its confines, it seems that his time in St. Asaph was both considerably less dramatic and more productive for Stanley, as he left the workhouse at the age of fifteen with a good education. Finding limited opportunities in Britain, Stanley set off in 1859 for the United States, serving as a cabin boy on an Atlantic crossing from Liverpool to New Orleans. A prominent Louisiana merchant, Henry Hope Stanley, befriended the young Welshman, and in recognition of this debt and with...