John Kirk (explorer)

John Kirk (explorer)

John Kirk CMG KCB (December 19, 1832 – January 15, 1922) was a Scottish physician, naturalist, companion to explorer David Livingstone, and British administrator in Zanzibar. He was born in Barry, near Arbroath, Scotland and is buried in St. Nicholas's churchyard in Sevenoaks, Kent, England. He earned his medical degree from the University of Edinburgh. He was a keen botanist throughout his life and was highly regarded by successive directors of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew: William Hooker, Joseph Dalton Hooker and William Thistleton-Dyer.

After the death of Livingstone, Kirk pledged to continue Livingston's work to end the East African slave trade. For years he negotiated with the ruler of Zanzibar, Sultan Bargash, gaining his confidence and promising to help enrich the East African domain through legitimate commerce. The Sultan banned slave trading in 1873 and by 1885, the region was larger and more profitable. Unfortunately, after the Berlin Conference, the British Government forced Kirk as British Consul in Zanzibar to drop the Sultan as part of the "Scramble for Africa".

Kirk had a daughter, Helen, who married Major-General Henry Brooke Hagstromer Wright CB CMG, the brother of the famous bacteriologist and immunologist, Sir Almroth Edward Wright and of Sir Charles Theodore Hagberg Wright, Secretary and Librarian of London Library.

The standard author abbreviation J.Kirk is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.