Livingstone funded his own medical studies at Anderson's University in Glasgow by working as a tradesman cotton spinner. He moved to London to enter the London Missionary Society and further his medical studies in the London hospitals. In 1840 he became a licentiate of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and was ordained a missionary in the same year.

Although set to serve as a missionary in China, he was instead sent to South Africa. Here he worked and travelled as a medical missionary for many years.

This portrait was purchased by the Faculty in 1875. It is an 'enlarged photograph by Mr Thomas Annan coloured in oil' and cost 30 guineas. The photograph was taken in 1864, and the image was coloured in oil after Livingstone's death.]]> Annan; Thomas (1829-1887); Photographer]]>