Description
William Holman Bentley (1855–1905) was born in Sudbury, United Kingdom, where his father was a Baptist minister. After working for a time as a bank clerk, he was accepted by the Baptist Missionary Society for its new Congo mission and, in April 1879, he sailed for the Congo with three other missionaries. In January 1881, Bentley and H.E. Crudgington became the first Europeans to establish a route inland from the mouth of the Congo River to Stanley Pool, site of present-day Kinshasa. While building mission stations and traveling ...