David Livingstone (1813 – 1873) was a Scottish Congregationalist, pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society, an explorer in Africa, and one of the most popular national heroes of the late-19th-century in the Victorian era. He had a mythical status that operated on a number of interconnected levels: Protestant missionary martyr, working-class "rags-to-riches" inspirational story, scientific investigator and explorer, imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader, and advocate of commercial and colonial expansion.