ABSTRACT
William Charles Baldwin (1827-1903) was born in Lancashire and died in Cheshire. He arrived in Natal at the end of 1851, stirred to go to South Africa by his reading of Gordon Cumming's tales of his hunting adventures. Baldwin went on seven hunting expeditions: three to the north of Natal and four to Tswana country to the west. Each journey covered more ground than the previous one, the last consisting of 2,000 miles. After his first hunting expedition Baldwin had stayed on a 9,000 acre farm for two years trading cattle, but found the existence too monotonous. In June 1858 he reached Lake Ngami. In 1860 Baldwin reported having met Livingstone at Victoria Falls and claimed to be the second European to visit there. In the last three years of his travelling, Baldwin covered more than 1,000 miles. He returned to England in 1861, never to return to South Africa.
