Frederick Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard

Early life and education

Lugard was born in Madras (now Chennai) in India, but was raised in Worcester, England. He was the son of the Rev'd Frederick Grueber Lugard, a British Army chaplain at Madras, and his third wife Mary Howard (1819–1865), the youngest daughter of Rev'd John Garton Howard (1786–1862), a younger son of landed gentry from Thorne and Melbourne near York. Lugard was educated at Rossall School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

The name 'Dealtry' was in honour of Thomas Dealtry, a friend of his father.

Military career

Lugard was commissioned into the 9th Foot (East Norfolk Regiment) in 1878, joining the second battalion in India and serving in the following campaigns:

Lugard was appointed to the Distinguished Service Order in 1887. In May 1888, he took command of an expedition organised by the British settlers in Nyasaland against Arab slave traders on Lake Nyasa and was severely wounded.

Exploration of East Africa

After leaving Nyasaland in April 1889, Lugard accepted a position with the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) and arrived in Mombasa on the coast of east Africa that December. A year earlier in 1888, the IBEAC had been granted a royal charter by Queen Victoria to exploit the 'British sphere of influence' between Zanzibar and Uganda and were keen to open a trading route between Lake Victoria in Uganda and the coastal port of Mombasa. Their first interior trading post was established at Machakos 240 miles in from the coast. But the established traditional route to Machakos was a treacherous journey through the large Taru Desert--93 miles of scorching dust bowl.

Lugard's first mission was to determine the feasibility of a route from Mombasa to Machakos that would bypass the Taru Desert. He explored the Sabaki river and the neighbouring region, in addition to elaborating a scheme for the emancipation of the slaves held by Arabs in the Zanzibar mainland.

In August 1890, Lugard departed on foot from Mombasa for Uganda to secured British predominance over German influence in the area and put an end to the civil disturbances between factions in the kingdom of Buganda.

En route, Lugard was instructed to enter into treaties with local tribes and build forts in order to secure safe passage for future IBEAC expeditions. The IBEAC employed official treaty documents that were signed by their administrator and the local leaders but Lugard preferred the more equitable blood brotherhood ceremony and entered into several brotherhood partnerships with leaders who inhabited the areas between Mombasa and Uganda. One of his famed blood partnerships was sealed in October 1890 during his journey to Uganda when he stopped at Dagoretti in Kikuyu territory and entered into an alliance with Waiyaki wa Hinga.

Lugard was Military Administrator of Uganda from 26 December 1890 to May 1892. While administering Uganda, he journeyed round the Rwenzori Mountains to Lake Edward, mapping a large area of the country. He also visited Lake Albert and brought away some thousands of Sudanese who had been left there by Emin Pasha and H. M. Stanley during the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition.

When Lugard returned to England in 1892, he successfully dissuaded Prime Minister William Gladstone from abandoning Uganda.

Early colonial service

In 1894, Lugard was dispatched by the Royal Niger Company to Borgu, where he secured treaties with the kings and chiefs who acknowledged the sovereignty of the British company, while reducing the influence of other colonial powers. From 1896 to 1897, Lugard took charge of an expedition to Lake Ngami, in modern-day Botswana, on behalf of the British West Charterland Company. He was recalled from Ngami by the British government and sent to West Africa, where he was commissioned to raise a native force to protect British interests in the hinterland of the Lagos Colony and Nigeria against French aggression. In August 1897, Lugard organised the West African Frontier Force and commanded it until the end of December 1899, when the disputes with France were settled.

After relinquishing command of the West African Frontier Force, Lugard was appointed High Commissioner of the newly created Protectorate of Northern Nigeria. He was present at Lokoja and read the proclamation that established the protectorate on 1 January 1900. At that time, the portion of Northern Nigeria under effective control was small, and Lugard's task in organising this vast territory was made more difficult by the refusal of the sultan of Sokoto and many other Fula princes to fulfil their treaty obligations.

In 1903, British control over the whole protectorate was made possible by a successful campaign against the emir of Kano and the sultan of Sokoto. By the time Lugard resigned as commissioner in 1906, the entire Nigeria was being peacefully administered under the supervision of British residents. There were, though, uprisings that were brutally put down by Lugard's troops. A Mahdi rebellion in 1906 at the Satiru, a village near Sokoto, resulted in the total destruction of the town and huge numbers of casualties.

Lugard was knighted in 1901 for his service in Nigeria.

Governor of Hong Kong

About a year after he resigned as High Commissioner of the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, Lugard was appointed Governor of Hong Kong, a position he held until March 1912. During his tenure, Lugard proposed to return Weihaiwei to the Chinese government, in return for the ceding of the rented New Territories in perpetuity. However, the proposal was neither well received nor acted upon. Some believed that if the proposal were carried through, Hong Kong might forever remain in British hands.

Lugard's chief interest was education and he was largely remembered for his efforts to the founding of the University of Hong Kong in 1911. He became the first chancellor, despite a cold receptions from the imperial Colonial Office and local British companies, such as the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. The Colonial Office called the idea of a university "Sir Frederick's pet lamb". In fact, Lugard's idea was to create a citadel of higher education which could serve as the foremost bearer of Western culture in the Orient.

Governor of Nigeria

In 1912, Lugard returned to Nigeria as Governor of the two protectorates. His mission was to amalgamate the two colonies into one. Although controversial in Lagos, where it was opposed by a large section of the political class and the media, the amalgamation did not arouse passion in the rest of the country because the people were unaware of the implications. Lugard took scant notice of public opinion, neither did he feel there was need for consensus among the locals on such a serious political subject which had such key implications for the two colonies. From 1914 to 1919, Lugard served as Governor General of the now combined colony of Nigeria. Throughout his tenure, he sought strenuously to secure the amelioration of the condition of the native people, among other means by the exclusion, wherever possible, of alcoholic liquors, and by the suppression of slave raiding and slavery.

Lugard, assisted by his indefatigable wife, Flora Shaw, concocted a legend which warped understanding of him, Nigeria and colonialism for decades. He believed that "the typical African ... is a happy, thriftless, excitable person, lacking in self control, discipline and foresight, naturally courageous, courteous and polite, full of personal vanity, with little of veracity; in brief, the virtues and defects of this race-type are those of attractive children."

Funding of the colony of Nigeria in the development of state's infrastructure such as harbours, railways and hospitals in Southern Nigeria came from revenue generated by taxes on imported alcohol. In Northern Nigeria, the revenue that allowed state development projects was less because the taxes was absent and thus funding of projects was covered from revenue generated in the south.

The Adubi War occurred during his governorship. In Northern Nigeria, Lugard permitted slavery within traditional elite families. He loathed the educated and sophisticated Africans of the coastal regions. Lugard ran the country whilst spending half each year in England, where he could promote himself and was distant from realities in Africa, where subordinates had to delay decisions on many matters until he returned. He based his rule on a military system - unlike William MacGregor, a doctor turned governor, who mixed with all ranks of people and listened to what was wanted. The Lugard who opposed "native education" later became involved in Hong Kong University, and the man who disliked traders and businessmen became a director of a Nigerian bank.

The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa

Lugard's The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa was published in 1922 and discussed indirect rule in colonial Africa. In this work, Lugard outlined the reasons and methods that he recommended for the colonisation of Africa by Britain. Some of his justifications included spreading Christianity and ending 'barbarism' (such as human sacrifice). He also saw state-sponsored colonisation as a way to protect missionaries, local chiefs and local people from each other, as well as from foreign powers. For Lugard, it was also vital that Britain gain control of unclaimed areas before Germany, Portugal or France claimed the land and its resources for themselves. He realised that there were vast profits to be made through the export of resources such as rubber, and through taxation of native populations as well as importers and exporters (The British taxpayer continually made a loss from the colonies in this period). In addition, these resources and inexpensive native labour (slavery having been outlawed by Britain in 1834) would provide vital fuel for the industrial revolution in resource-depleted Britain, as well as monies for public works projects. Finally, Lugard reasoned that colonisation had become a fad and that, in order to remain a super power, Britain would need to hold colonies to avoid appearing weak.

League of Nations and Anti-Slavery activism

Between 1922 and 1936, Lugard was the British representative on the League of Nations' Permanent Mandates Commission. During this period he served first on the Temporary Slavery Commission and was involved in organising the 1926 Slavery Convention. He had submitted a proposal for the Convention to the British government. Although they were initially alarmed by it, the British government backed the proposal (after subjecting it to considerable redrafting) and it was eventually enacted. Lugard served on the International Labour Organization's Committee of Experts on Native Labour from 1925 to 1941.

Views

Lugard pushed for native rule in African colonies. He reasoned that black Africans were very different from white Europeans, although he did speculate on the admixture of Aryan or Hamitic blood arising from the advent of Islam among the Hausa and Fulani. He considered that natives should act as a sort of middle manager in colonial governance. This would avoid revolt because, he believed, the people of Africa would be more likely to follow someone who looked like them, spoke their languages and shared their customs.

Olufemi Taiwo argues that Lugard actually blocked qualified Africans, who had been educated in Britain, from playing an active role in the development of the country; he distrusted white "intellectuals" as much as black ones - believing that the principles they were taught in the universities were often wrong. He preferred to advance prominent Hausa and Fulani leaders from traditional structures.

Honours

Lugard was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in 1895. He was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in the 1901 New Year Honours and raised to a Knight Grand Cross (GCMG) in 1911. He was appointed to the Privy Council in the 1920 New Year Honours. In 1928 he was further honoured when he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Lugard, of Abinger in the County of Surrey.

The Royal Geographical Society awarded him the Founder′s Gold Medal in 1902 for persistent attention to African geography.

A bronze bust of Lugard, created by Pilkington Jackson in 1960, is held in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Personal life

Lugard married, on 10 June 1902, Flora Shaw, daughter of Major-General George Shaw, and granddaughter of Sir Frederick Shaw, 3rd Baronet. She was a writer for The Times and coined the place-name Nigeria. There were no children from the marriage. She died in January 1929; Lugard survived her by sixteen years and died on 11 April 1945, aged 87. Since he was childless, the barony became extinct. He was cremated at Woking Crematorium.

Published works