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Gledhill Stanley Blatch was born in 1916. He worked for Unilever in the cocoa trade on the Gold Coast between 1937-1938, and then during World War II served the British Government as an intelligence officer. He remained in Germany after the War, attached to the British Forces, until his retirement in 1979. He died in 1987.

From the early 1960s, Gledhill Blatch developed an active interest in Ethiopian affairs, visiting Eritrea regularly before the fighting became too intense and his own health began to fail. His original interest was in the history and archaeology of the country, but as his knowledge and circle of acquaintances grew, he developed an interest in its socio-political affairs.

H. G. A. Hughes was born 21 July 1921 in Pontlottyn, Wales. He was educated in Pontypridd and at Jesus College, Oxford. In 1947 he gained a diploma in Education from the Institute of Education and then remained there as a research assistant on Community Development and Tropical Education. From 1949 to 1954 he was lecturer in Linguistics with reference to Oceanic Languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies and during this period, from Jan 1951 - Jun 1952, he undertook research in Gilbert Islands and Ellice Islands, Solomon Islands and Samoa. From 1955 to 1959 he was International Librarian at the International Library, Liverpool and from 1959 to 1963 Head of Department of Commerce and Liberal Studies at the Technical College, Colwyn Bay. In 1963 he became Visiting Senior Lecturer at Charles University, Prague and received a doctorate from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. From 1966 to 1974 he was Borough Librarian for Flint and then worked as a tutor for the Open University, trainee solicitor and financial administrator and Hospital Secretary, St. Clare's, Pantasaph.

Dr Hughes has written numerous publications on a wide range of subjects, but with a particular reference to the Pacific, and since 1947 he has been Director of a number of companies involved in reviewing, publishing and translating; particularly on Welsh subjects. Membership of organisations includes Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Societé des Oceanistes, Polynesian Society, Linguistic Society of New Zealand, Association of Social Anthropologists in Oceania, Institute of Journalism, Society of Authors, Translators Association, Welsh Academy, Welsh Union of Writers, Communist Party of Great Britain, Democratic Left, and Plaid Cymru.

Sidney Herbert Ray was born in 1858. He became a schoolmaster in 1882. His interest in Oceanic languages began in about 1887 and he became a Fellow of the Anthropological Institute in 1888. He visited Torres Strait, New Guinea and Borneo 1898-1899 with the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition. In 1907 he received an Honorary M.A. from Cambridge. He became Vice-President of the Anthropological Institute in 1919 and Rivers Medallist at the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1928. He was occasional lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies from 1920s-1936. He died in 1939.

His publications include A Comparative Vocabulary of the Dialects of British New Guinea (1895); Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits (1907-1935); Languages of Borneo (1913); People and Language of Lifu (1918); Languages of Northern Papua (1919); Languages of Western Papua (1919); Comparative Study of the Melanesian Island Languages (1926); Languages of Central Papua (1929); Grammar of the Kiwai Language (1933); and Languages of South-Eastern Papua (1938).

Frances Butcher was born on 7 March 1887 in Lewisham, South London. She trained as a Nursing Sister at the London Temperance Hospital and at Carey Hall. On 31 July 1920 she sailed to China, where she worked as a Nursing Sister at the Tientsin Hospital for the London Missionary Society. Frances Butcher resigned her position in October 1924 when she married William Sheldon Ridge.

William Sheldon Ridge was born in Selby, Yorkshire on 10 Jan 1875, and worked as a teacher. He married Mary Louisa Craven in 1903, who died in 1923. They went out to China in 1904 when Ridge became Headmaster of the Shanghai Municipal Public School for Chinese. In 1905 he became Assistant Editor of The Shanghai Mercury, and held a series of editorships including The National Review China (1907-1916); The Peking Daily News (1917-1921); and The Far Eastern Times (1922-1926). In 1930 Ridge started The Chronicle, which he continued until 1939 when he retired. As well as doing journalistic work Ridge was Lecturer on Chinese geography and international relations at the North China Union Language School (from 1917), and Professor of English Language and Literature at the Chinese Government College of Salt Administration (from 1920) and at the Chinese Government University of Communications (from 1927). On their retirement the Ridges moved to Yenchi, and were interned by the Japanese in 1943. In 1945 Ridge died suddenly from a gall stone obstruction.

Wilfred Lawson Blythe was born on 9 November 1896 and was educated at the Universities of Liverpool and Grenoble. He served in the First World War, 1915-1919, and joined the Malayan Civil Service in 1921. He studied Chinese in Canton during 1922-1924 and became the Protector of Chinese in various parts of Malaya during 1926-1936. He served as the Deputy President of the Municipality in Penang, 1936-1937, and again in 1939-1940 and as Deputy Controller of Labour (Chinese) during 1941-1942. He served with the Army in Malaya in 1942 and was interned from 1942-1945. In 1946 he became the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, Federation of Malaya. From 1948-1950 he became the President of the Municipal Commission in Singapore. In 1950 he became Colonial Secretary of Singapore and remained there until his retirement in 1953. In 1969 he wrote Secret Societies in Malaya. He married Muriel Gertrude Woodward in 1925. He died in 1975.

Thomas Walker Arnold was born on 19 April 1864 and educated at the City of London School. He entered Magdalene College, Cambridge University in 1883. From 1888 he worked as a teacher at the Mahommedan Anglo-Orient College, Aligarh. In 1898, he accepted a post as Professor of Philosophy at the Government College, Lahore and later became Dean of the Oriental Faculty at Punjab University. From 1904 to 1909 he was on the staff of the India Office as Assistant Librarian. In 1909 he was appointed Educational Adviser to Indian students in Britain. From 1917 to 1920 he acted as Adviser to the Secretary of State for India. He was Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, 1921-1930. He was made Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire in 1912, and in 1921 was given a Knighthood by the Crown. He married Celia Mary Hickson in 1892. He died on 9 June 1930.

Tom Pearson Cromwell was born in 1909 and educated at Bradford High School, and at Christ's College, Cambridge. He joined the Colonial Administrative Service in 1932 and served as a cadet in Malaya until 1939. He was interned from 1942-1945. In 1945 he conducted a survey on Chinese schools in Malaya. He became the Assistant Secretary for Chinese Affairs in Malaya in 1946, holding the Portfolio of Labour in Sarawak by 1947. In 1953, he was appointed Director of Social Welfare in Singapore. From 1957 until he retired in 1960, he held the post of Departmental Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government, Lands and Housing.

William Millman was born on 1 March 1872. His upbringing was strict and puritanical, his parents being devout Congregationalists. He trained as a pupil-teacher in Wolverhampton in 1885, and then moved with his family to Leicester in 1888, where he became a teacher in 1893. In 1897 he was accepted by the Baptist Missionary Society and in the same year left England for the Congo. Shortly after his arrival in Yakusu, Walter Stapleton, the missionary responsible for the station, left on furlough, leaving Millman in charge. During his own first furlough in 1901, he married. Tragically, shortly after their return to Yakusu, his wife died. In 1906, Walter Stapleton died. Millman took it upon himself to visit his widow, Edith, to return various personal effects left behind in the mission field. In 1908 Millman and Edith were married and returned together to Yakusu. In 1909 their daughter, Litwasi, was born. In 1912 Litwasi was taken to live in England while William and Edith continued their missionary work in Africa. During their time there, they undertook the building of a hospital and a church premises, and William used his language skills to translate much of the New Testament into Lokele. Upon their retirement from the mission field, they returned to live in Worthing, England. Edith died of natural causes in 1952, and William Millman died on 14 March 1956.

Born in Freetown, Sierra Leone on 11 March 1907, Cole went to the Government Model School in 1914 and then to Sierra Leone Grammar School in 1918. He entered Fourah Bay College in 1923 to read for the Durham University degree in Arts. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1926 and was appointed as an Assistant Lecturer in mathematics in 1927 at Fourah Bay College. He obtained an Upper Second Class degree in Philosophy in 1928.

He came to England in 1928 and entered Newcastle-upon-Tyne Medical School. In 1933 he obtained his M.B, B.S. with First Class Honours. He began his medical career as a House Surgeon at Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle. He set up his own General Practice in Newcastle in 1934. In 1943 he obtained a Doctorate in Medicine and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. In 1944 he passed the Master of Surgery examination, M.S. In October of that year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons at Edinburgh and in November he became the first African and first black person to be elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He toured West Africa (Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Cape Coast, Gold Coast and Nigeria) during March to September 1945, as a member of the Colonial Office Advisory Committee for the Welfare of Colonial Peoples. In 1950 he moved his General Practice to Nottingham and was practising there until he joined the Nigerian Civil Service as a Consultant Surgeon in 1962. In 1964 he proceeded to Sierra Leone to work as Consultant Surgeon to the Sierra Leone Government. He returned to England in 1974. In 1962, Dr Cole lost his British nationality status, which was not restored until 1981.

With his wide interests in West African students and African affairs he became President of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne and North East England East and West Friendship Society. He was also the President of the Society for the Cultural Advancement of Africa. He became a Director of the West African Students Union and was a founder member of the West African Society and editor of its journal Africana. He became President of the League of Coloured People of Great Britain and Ireland and he also served as a member of the Advisory Committee of the Colonial Bureau of the Fabian Society from 1943-1950. From 1942 to 1958 he was a Member of the Colonial Office Advisory Committee on the Welfare of Colonial Peoples in the United Kingdom, the Colonial Advisory Medical Committee and the Colonial Economic and Development Council.

He married three times, Anna Isabel Brodie in 1932, Amy Manto Bondfield Hotobah-During in 1950 and Anjuma Josephine Elizabeth Wyse in 1980.

His published works include Kossoh Town Boy (Cambridge University Press, 1960); An Innocent in Britain (Autobiography) (London, 1988). Unpublished works include Black Paradise. Fiction includes Country Doctor and Black Swan.

In 1804 Usuman dan Fodio (1754-1817), a Fulani and Muslim, began a holy war to reform the practice of Islam in northern Nigeria, conquering the Hausa city-states. In 1817 his son, Muhammad Bello (d 1837), established a state centred at Sokoto. Under these two rulers Muslim culture and trade flourished. Sokoto controlled most of northern Nigeria until in 1900 British forces under Frederick Lugard began to conquer the area, taking Sokoto in 1903. By 1906 Britain controlled Nigeria, which was divided into the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria and the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria (amalgamated to form the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria in 1914). Nigeria attained independence in 1960.

The central subject of this collection, the Nigerian woman poet Nana Asma'u (1793-1865), was the daughter of Usuman (Shehu) dan Fodio (1754-1817). Her poems, 65 in number, constitute an important literary legacy of this period. She wrote in Arabic for formal pieces, Hausa for didactic verse, and Fulfulde when addressing her contemporaries within the ruling circle.

Jean Boyd's publications include: with Alhaji Shehu Shagari, Uthman Dan Fodio: the theory and practice of his leadership (1978); The Caliph's sister: Nan Asma'u 1793-1865: teacher, poet and Islamic leader (1989); with Hamzat M Maishanu, Sir Siddiq Abubakar III: Sarkin Musulmi (1991); with Beverly B Mack, One woman's Jihad: Nana Asma'u, scholar and scribe (2000).

Donald James Mackay was born in the Hague on 22 December 1839. He was naturalised in 1877 and succeeded to the title of 11th Baron Reay in 1881. From 1884-1886 he was Rector of St. Andrew's University. From 1885-1890 he was Governor of Bombay. From 1892-1918 he was Lord-Lieutenant of Roxburghshire. He served as Under-Secretary for India from 1894-1895, and from 1897-1904 as Chairman of the London School Board. He was President of the Royal Asiatic Society and University College London, and the first President of the British Academy from 1901-1907. He died on 1 August 1921.

Melvin Lee Perlman was born in 1933, in Pampa, Texas. He entered Yale University in 1951 having won a four-year fellowship to do a B.A. degree in Human Culture and Behaviour. From 1955 to 1956 he studied Hebrew language and culture at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. After securing a Graduate Assistantship at Oxford University he did a one-year diploma in Anthropology at Oxford and passed with distinction in 1957. During 1957 and 1958 he read for a B.Litt degree in Social Anthropology at the same university. In 1963 he obtained the degree of D.Phil in Social Anthropology from Oxford University.

Between 1959 and 1962 he was engaged as Research Fellow of the East African Institute of Social Research (EAISR) of Makere University College, Kampala, Uganda, where he undertook a research study on marriage and family life in Uganda with special reference to Toro. In 1961, while on contract to the EAISR, he also undertook a study with recommendations for the Uganda Company on: Factors Affecting Labour Stability on the Uganda Company Tea Estates in Toro District, Uganda. Melvin Perlman died in May 1988.

Henry Vincent Hodson was born on 12 May 1906 and educated at Gresham's School and later Balliol College, Oxford (1925-1928). He was a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford from 1928-1935. Between 1930 and 1931 he was a member of the Economic Advisory Council. He became Assistant Editor of the Round Table in 1931, and Editor 1934-1939. In 1933 he married Margaret Elizabeth Honey. He was the Director of the Empire Division of the Ministry of Information 1939-1941, before becoming Reforms Commissioner of the Government of India. Returning to the UK in 1942, he was made Principal Assistant Secretary and later Head of Non-Munitions D.V., Ministry of Broadcast until 1945. In 1946 he became Assistant Editor of the Sunday Times, and Editor 1950-1961. He was made Provost of the Ditchley Foundation in 1961. He was the Editor of The Annual Register of World Events from 1973 until his retirement in 1988. He died on 26 March 1999.

Hodson's publications include: Economics of a Changing World (1933); The Empire in the World (1937); Slump and Recovery (1929, 1937, 1938); The British Commonwealth and the Future (1939); 20th Century Empire (1948); Problems of Anglo-American Relations (1963); The Great Divide: Britain-India-Pakistan (1969); The Diseconomics of Growth (1972).

William, sixth Lord Paget, was born on 10 February 1637, the eldest son of William, fifth Lord Paget. On 25 November 1678 he took up his seat in the House of Lords. In 1681 he signed a petition against the Parliament being held at Oxford. On the landing of the Prince of Orange, he was one of the Peers who petitioned the King to call a 'free parliament'. He subsequently voted for the vacancy of the throne and for settling the Crown on William and Mary, the Prince and Princess of Orange. On their accession, he was constituted the Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire in March 1688-1689.

In September 1690 he was appointed Ambassador at Vienna. He held this post until February 1693, when he was appointed as Ambassador-Extraordinary to Turkey. In this role he participated in the negotiations for a treaty of peace between the Imperialists, Poles and Turks, resulting in the Treaty of Carlowitz on 26 January 1699. Shortly afterwards he was instrumental in the peace between Muscovy, the State of Venice and the Turks. The Sultan and Grand Vizier of Turkey wrote to William III in March 1699, asking that Paget would not be recalled home, as Paget himself desired. Paget consented to stay, finally quitting the Turkish Court at Adrianople in May 1702. Between July and November 1702, Paget stayed in Vienna to settle the dispute that had arisen between the Emperor and the Grand Seignior concerning the limits of their respective territories in the Province of Bosnia. In December 1702, he attended the Court of Bavaria to offer England's mediation in adjusting the differences between the Prince and the Emperor. He arrived back in London in April 1703. On 24 June 1703, he was re-appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Staffordshire. Paget died on 26 February 1713.

George Gordon Hake was born in 1847. He spent thirteen years from 1891 working in southern Africa, initially with the British South Africa Company and later with the Tanganyika Telegraph Service during 1889 and 1903 in the Mashonaland area. He died in 1903 and was buried at Port Herald.

George Gordon Hake was closely connected to the Rossetti family in their later years, acting as a 'minder' to Dante Gabriel Rossetti during one of their family holidays. Christina Rossetti was also godmother to his daughter Ursula.

The survey was undertaken by the Centre for Social and Economic Research at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and the Division for Urban and Rural Planning at Kaduna Polytechnic.

Wilfred Howell Whiteley was born in Liverpool, on 19 November 1924. He was educated at King Edward's High School, Birmingham, with the last two years at Lancaster Grammar School. His education was interrupted by a period of National Service, which took him to East Africa for a time. This lasted until the end of the War, when he became a student at the London School of Economics, graduating in Anthropology in 1949. He was appointed as Research Assistant at the International African Institute, but after a short time accepted the post of Government Anthropologist, Tanganyika. His duties took him mainly to the Southern province, where he became interested in the local Bantu languages. During this period, he was also in touch with the East African Institute of Social Research at Makerere, Uganda. When his contract as Government Anthropologist ended in 1952, he was appointed Research Fellow of the Institute, and continued in this post until 1958.

During his time in East Africa, Whiteley concentrated on linguistic research. After discussing his plans with Malcolm Guthrie at the School of Oriental and African Studies, he focused on the languages to the east of Lake Victoria in both Tanganyika and Kenya. He collected a great deal of material, which he used in his thesis, awarded by the University of London in 1955. He had also become competent in Swahili, and was asked to become the Secretary of the East African Swahili Committee, formed in 1930 at Kampala to co-ordinate work on Swahili throughout then British East Africa. Under his leadership, this committee played an important role in raising the status of Swahili at a time when many East African territories were gaining independence.

In 1959, the University of London established the Readership in Bantu Languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Whiteley was appointed as its first incumbent, focusing on teaching and research into Swahili. He also began his investigations into the Yao language, and was granted overseas research leave 1961-1962, which was spent partly in Nyasaland working on Yao, and partly in Kenya working on Kamba. From 1963 to May 1964, he was seconded to the University of Wisconsin as Visiting Professor. At this time, plans were finalised to establish a Department of African Languages and Linguistics at University College, Dar es Salaam, and Whiteley was seconded as Professor and Head of the Department, 1964-1967. He also became Director of the Institute of Swahili Research, which was established on his recommendation to take over the functions of the East Africa Swahili Committee. In 1965, the University of London conferred the title of Professor of Bantu Languages on him, and in 1967 he returned to SOAS. In 1968, he succeeded Malcolm Guthrie as Head of the Department of Africa. However, he was prevented from taking up the post until October 1969, because of his involvement in the Survey of Language Use and Language Planning in East Africa, under the auspices of the Ford Foundation. From 1968-1969, he was Director of the team dealing with the Kenya section of the survey. When Guthrie retired in 1970, Whiteley also succeeded him to the Chair of Bantu Languages.

Whiteley's main interest and field of work was socio-linguistics, but he also made significant contributions to the study of Swahili syntax. He died suddenly on 16 April 1972 at the age of 47, whilst on a lecture tour to Indiana University.

Around fifty of Whiteley's works have been published, including: Studies in Iraqw - an Introduction (Kampala, 1953); A Practical Introduction to Kamba (OUP, 1962); A Study of Yao Sentences (Clarendon Press, 1965); Some Problems of Transitivity in Swahili (SOAS, 1968). Articles include: 'Some problems in the syntax of a Bantu languages in East Africa', in Lingua, IX, 2 (1970); 'Notes on the syntax of the passive in Swahili', in African Language Studies, X (1970); 'Focus and entailment, further problems of transitivity in Swahili', in African Language Review, VIII (1969).

Archibald Norman Tucker was born in Cape Town on 10 March 1904. He was educated at South African College School. He obtained his MA from the University of Cape Town in 1926, his PhD from the University of London in 1929, and later also his DLit, in 1949.

He worked as Linguistic Expert of non-Arabic languages for the Sudan Government from 1929 to 1931. In 1932 he became Reader at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He was an active member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and a Conscientious Objector during World War II.

Much of his language work was concerned with orthographic research, which he undertook in both Uganda and Kenya (on Ganda and Kikuyu respectively). He organised and directed an orthography conference in Western Uganda in 1954, and, prior to that, in 1949-1951, he supervised a Bantu line expedition in the Belgian Congo for the International African Institute. Archibald Tucker was married. He died on 16 July 1980.

His publications include Suggestions for the Spelling of Transvaal Sesuto (1929); The Eastern Sudanic Languages, Vol. 1 (1940); Swahili Phonetics (1942); M. A. Bryan & A. N. Tucker, Distribution of the Nilotic ad Nilo-Hamitic Languages of Africa (1948); A Maasai Grammar with Vocabulary (1955); Linguistic Survey of the Northern Bantu Borderland, Vol. 4 (1957); A. N. Tucker & M. A. Bryan, Linguistic Analyses: The Non-Bantu Languages of North-Eastern Africa (1966); The Comparative Phonetics of the Suto-Chuana Group of Bantu Languages (1969); A Grammar of Kenya Luo (Dholuo) (1994); and Tribal Music and Dancing in the Southern Sudan (Africa), at Social and Ceremonial Gatherings.

Abraham Nahum Stencl (Avrom-Nokhem Shtentsl): born in Tsheladzh, in south-western Poland, 1897; arrived in Berlin, 1921; a leading Yiddish literary figure in Germany, he wrote expressionist poetry and associated with other literary figures including Else Lasker-Schüler (Schueler) and Thomas Mann; he was a pioneer of the modernist form in Yiddish poetry, but his themes and imagery drew on Jewish tradition; fled to Britain in the mid-1930s; following his arrival his best-known works were on Whitechapel, where he settled, and which he admired as the last Yiddish 'shtetl' (place); edited Loshn un Lebn (Language and Life), a Yiddish literary journal, for over 40 years; chaired the literarishe shábes-nokhmîtiks (literary Sunday afternoons) meetings; lived in Greatorex Road, off Whitechapel High Street; died, 1983. An annual lecture at the University of Oxford was founded in his name.

Eugenie Jane Andrina Henderson was born on 2 October 1914. After leaving school she went to University College, London to read English, where she later studied phonetics under Daniel Jones. Although she specialised in phonetics and phonology, she also made an invaluable contribution to the field of general linguistics, and advanced the study of many South East Asian languages, notably Karen, Khasi, Thai and Chin. She married George Meier in 1941.

Her career at the School of Oriental and African Studies started in 1944, following a short spell working for the Ministry of Economic Welfare during the Second World War. She taught under Professor Firth, initially teaching Japanese to armed services personnel. She researched the subject of prosodic phonology, a theory advocated by Firth, and published several significant works in this field. She stayed on at SOAS after the end of the War, lecturing in the languages of South East Asia, and became Head of Department in 1960. During the six years of her appointment, she furthered the development of the department by introducing the study options of combining language courses with social anthropology or history. In 1966 she was appointed Head of the Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, during which time she undertook much of her work on prosodic phonology. She became an honorary fellow of the School in 1985 and a Fellow of the British Academy in the following year.

Eugenie Henderson's published works included Tiddim Chin: a descriptive analysis of two texts (1965), The Domain of Phonetics (1965) and The Indispensable Foundation: a Selection from the Writings of Henry Sweet (1971). Her magnum opus was the compilation of material for a dictionary of Karen, although she died on 27 July 1989 before the work was published. In addition to having many of her own works published, Eugenie Henderson assisted in the publication of the works of other scholars like Gordon Luce, who wrote Pre-Pagan Burma.

Andrew Augustus Gordon Hake was born in Bristol in 1925. After leaving Marlborough College, where he was at school, and having completed his army service, he read Theology at Cambridge University and Wells Theological College. He was ordained in Bristol in 1951 and served his first curacy in a housing estate until 1954, whereupon he took up an appointment as Assistant to the Industrial Adviser to the Bishop of Bristol.

In April 1957, he moved to Nairobi to take up the post of Industrial Adviser to the Christian Council of Kenya (which later became the National Christian Council of Kenya). During this time, he was active among the local churches as well as in urban and industrial work. The work was financed by Janet Lacey, initially through the British Council of Churches' Inter-Church Aid and later through Christian Aid. He was accorded an award from the Ford Foundation, which financed the research and writing of his book African Metropolis: Nairobi's Self-help City, which was published in 1977. During the course of his work, he also wrote Who Controls Industry?, the report of a working party, serviced by Hake, which addresses the issues of public versus private control of industry. The work was published anonymously in 1968. In 1958 he married Jean Besgrove, who was working as a CMS missionary in Nairobi. In June 1969, Hake and his family returned to the UK, where, after a year's study leave, he took up a post with the Swindon Borough Council as Community Development Officer, whilst remaining a non-stipendiary Priest in the Bristol diocese. During this time, he was also a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Commission on Urban Priority Areas, which produced the Faith in the City report, published in 1985.

Sir Alwyne Ogden was born on June 29th 1889, the son of a Railway Auditor. He was educated at Dulwich College and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Failing to enter the Indian Civil Service he chose to go to China and was appointed as a Student Interpreter at the British Legation in Peking on December 3rd, 1912. His work involved roaming through Henan Province from August 1916 to the following February, buying cattle for the British Army, serving as Acting Consul at Changsha in 1916 during an anti-foreign riot, and working with the recruitment of the Chinese Labour Corps in Shandong Province from October 1917 to July 1918. Afterwards he served in Peking and Tientsin from 1918-1920, where he met Jessie Vera Bridge, the daughter of a local missionary, Albert Henry Bridge. The couple was eventually married in Tientsin in 1922.

In 1922 he visited the Tibetan frontier on special assignment, before being caught up in a siege in Chengdu upon his arrival to serve as Vice Consul. He became Acting Consul General there from December 23rd, 1922 until the following May. In June 1925 he was appointed Acting Vice Consul at Hankow, and in February 1926 he became Consul at Jiujiang. He served there during the traumatic and violent period when the British concession was overrun and abandoned in January 1927 at the height of the Northern Expedition of the Guomindang. His actions in this period of crisis earned him an OBE in June 1927.

After a period of home leave he served in Tientsin from September 1928 as an Acting Vice Consul, and from January 31st as a full Vice-Consul. He served there, often as Acting Consul General until his next home-leave when he was briefly employed by the Department of Overseas Trade to draw up a booklet entitled China: Notes on some aspects of life in China for the information of business visitors (1934). His next appointment was at Shanghai in 1933. From December 1933 he became Acting Consul at Chefoo, and full Consul from February 1934 until April 1936. After a stint in Kunming he was in charge of the Consulate in Shanghai from March 1937 for two years. During this period he organised the evacuation of all British women and children from the city during the Sino-Japanese hostilities. From February 1940 to April 1941 he was put in charge of the Consulate in Nanjing, then under Japanese occupation. In 1941 he was transferred to Tientsin as Acting Consul General. At the outbreak of the Pacific War he was placed under house arrest with his family before being repatriated in July 1942. Thereafter he was Consul General in Kunming and then Shanghai, where he landed on September 7th 1945. He was responsible for the administration of the internment camps there, which held some 7,000 Britons, until they were closed. For this he was awarded the CMG in 1946. His experiences thereafter in Shanghai, as a member of the newly amalgamated Foreign Service, were not particularly happy and he left the service in 1948, six months after becoming a KBE.

In retirement he played an active role in organisations supporting Chiang Kai-šhek's regime after it fled to Taiwan at the close of the Chinese civil war in 1949. He was also an early advocate and publicist of Tibet's plight after 1950. He wrote reviews of works on contemporary China and its history, and many drafts of an autobiography that was never completed. He maintained an interest in British business relations with China through the China Association, and cultural relations through the China Society. He died in 1981.

The North China and Shantung Mission, originally the Church of England North China Mission, was established by anonymous donation in 1872. Several generations of Scott family members served with the Mission, including the Rev. C.P. Scott (1872-1927) and the Rev. P. M. Scott (1909-1931).

The first two missionaries to be sent to the Church of England North China Mission were Rev. Charles Perry Scott and Rev. M. Greenwood. C. P. Scott , born in 1847 and ordained in 1871, had previously served as curate of St. Peter's, Eaton Square. This was the beginning of a long association between the Mission and that parish. The help given to the Chinese during the severe famine of 1878-1879 placed the Mission on a secure footing, and C. P. Scott was made Bishop of North China, a new diocese, in 1880. The Mission, covering parts of Shansi and the Mongolian border, continued under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts and was manned by a few European missionaries and a number of Chinese converts. Three missionaries were killed during the Boxer uprising of 1900. The Diocese was divided again in 1903, with North China acquiring the province of Sheng-king and the new diocese of Shantung being created. Around the same time the Mission's name was changed from the North China Mission to the North China and Shantung Mission. C. P. Scott died shortly after his retirement in 1927.

Rev. Francis John Griffith was born around 1870. He and his wife arrived in China in 1894, where he was ordained in 1896. They worked in Tai-an-fu, the oldest station in the mission, under Bishop Geoffrey D. Iliff of Shantung and later under the same bishop at Yenchowfu. He served as chaplain to the British troops in North China in 1900 and carried out further war work during the Great War, arranging the movement of Chinese auxiliary forces to France. He retired in 1934 but died shortly afterwards on 5 May 1934.

Rev. Percy Melville Scott, the son of Canon S. G. Scott, was born around 1877, and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. After his ordination in 1903, he worked in Southampton and Leeds, before leaving for China. He and his wife Winifred arrived in China in 1909, accompanied by his cousin Charles Wilfred Scott and his wife May. They were stationed in Peking under C. P. Scott's successor, Bishop F. L. Norris. P. M. Scott's longest posting in China was in Tatung Fu (1923-1931). He was involved in the siege of Tatung Fu by the Kuominchun forces in 1926, and went at the request of the city elders on a peace mission to the Kuominchun, which ultimately proved unsuccessful. The Mosse Memorial Hospital, linked with the Mission, was severely damaged in the conflict. P. M. Scott returned to England in 1931, serving as vicar of several parishes before his death around 1950.

Maurice Woodforde Scott, the son of P. M. Scott, was born in Peking in 1912. After returning to England for his education at Marlborough and at St. Edmund's College, Oxford, he joined the firm of Butterfield & Swire and was posted to Shanghai and Hong Kong (1934-1937). Whilst there, he was involved in the Scouting movement. After the war he enrolled in Wells Theological College and was ordained in 1949. His ecclesiastical career was based entirely in England, and he was made Honorary Canon of Winchester Cathedral in 1975 until his partial retirement in 1980. He died in 1983.

Further reading: D MacGillivray, A Century of Protestant Missions in China 1807-1907 (Shanghai, 1907).

John Thomas Pratt was born on 13th January 1876, sixth son of Edward Pratt who worked for the Indian Salt Revenue Service. He was educated at Dulwich College. In 1905 he was called to the Bar, Middle Temple. Between 1898 and 1924, he served with the British Consular Service in China, holding various posts including Student Interpreter from 1898; British Assessor in Mixed Court at Shanghai Consul from 1909; Vice-Consul in China from 1910; Consul at Tsinan from 1913 and Consul-General from 1919; Nanking 1922 and Shanghai 1924. In 1925 he was transferred to the Foreign Office, acting as Adviser on Far Eastern Affairs. He remained in this post until 1938. From 1939 to 1941 he served as Head of Far Eastern Section of the Ministry of Information.

For twenty years he served as the Foreign Secretary's representative on the Universities China Committee. He was also Chairman of the British and Chinese Corporation, Member of the Scarborough Commission and Vice-Chairman of the Governing Body of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

John Thomas Pratt was married twice, to his first wife Edith Violet Houson Parker in 1914 (d 1937), and his second wife Dorothy Barker in 1943. He died on 23rd January 1970.

He had authored several works including Great Britain and China; Japan and the Modern World, 1942; War and Politics in China, 1943; Before Pearl Harbour, 1943; China and Japan; China and Britain, 1944; Expansion of Europe into the Far East, 1947; and several pamphlets.

Frederick William Parsons was born on February 9 1908. After studying Classics at Marlborough College, he went to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he gained a first class honours degree in Classical Moderations. He entered the Colonial Administrative Service in the early 1930's and spent 13 years in the northern provinces of Nigeria. In 1946, Parsons was appointed as Lecturer in Hausa at the School of Oriental and African Studies, assisting the Reverend George Percival Bargery in the provision of language training for colonial officials. He was appointed Reader in Hausa in 1965, a position he held until he retired in 1975. He is universally recognised as the pivotal figure in Hausa linguistic studies during the post-Second World War period. He died in 1993.

Parsons is probably best known for his influential publications on the Hausa verbal system: Afrika und Ubersee 44(1): 1-36, 1960; Afrika und Ubersee 55(1/2): 44-96; Afrika und Ubersee 55(3): 188-208, 1971/2; Journal of African Language, 1(2): 253-72, 1962, and also on the operation of grammatical gender: African Languages Studies, 1960/61/63, 1: 117-36, 2: 100-24, 4: 166-207. His earlier (1959) translation into Hausa of the Northern Nigerian Penal Code is also widely recognised as an outstanding piece of scholarship.

Publications on Parson's work include Writings on Hausa Grammar: the Collected Papers of F. W. Parsons (Graham Furniss & Ann Arbor, ed., University Microfilms, 1981), and Studies in Hausa Language and Linguistics (Graham Furniss & Philip J. Jaggar ed., Kegan Paul International, London, 1988).

Patrick Devereux Coates was born in 1916. Following his education at Trinity College, Cambridge he entered the Consular Service, having decided to learn Chinese and work for the Chinese Service. Between 1937 and 1941 Coates was posted to Peking, Canton and Kunming. He was then attached to the Chinese 22nd Division in Burma, and to Chinese forces in India from 1941 to 1944.

From 1944 to 1946 Coates was Acting Chinese Secretary to the British Embassy in China. He then returned to Britain and worked first for the Foreign Office in London, and then for the Civil Service in various ministries until his retirement in 1972. In October 1973 Coates obtained a two-year grant from the Nuffield Foundation to work on the research for The China Consuls: British Consular Officers 1843-1943 (published by Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1988). During this time he was an honorary Visiting Fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, from 1973 to 1976. He carried out his research at the School of Oriental and African Studies and the Public Record Office. From 1978 to 1987 Coates also acted as part time editor of Chinese language records for the British Academy at the Public Record Office. He married Mary Eleanor Campbell in 1946. He died at Lewes on 28 October 1990.

The Club de Dakar was founded on 2-3 December 1974 as a French initiative to improve industrial relations between western industries and Francophone African countries. It was instigated by Mohammed T. Diawara (later President of the Club), Minister for Planning, Ivory Coast. Following conferences in Birmingham in 1978, a British branch was established and interests were expanded to include Anglophone African countries. It seems that the Club de Dakar ceased its activities in c1988.

Hannah Stanton was born on 30 November 1913. She was educated privately at Summerleigh, Teddington, and went on to read English at London University, and to take a diploma in Social Science at the School of Economics. She worked for some time as a Hospital Almoner in Liverpool and London. From 1947 to 1948 she worked with the Friends Relief Service with refugees in post war Europe. In 1954, she began a Theology degree at Oxford.

Following the completion of her degree in August 1956, she visited her brother Tom who worked for the Community of the Resurrection in South Africa. She became involved in the Tumelong Mission in Lady Selborne, a black township near Pretoria, and in December 1956 took over as Warden. Whilst working at the Mission, she endeavoured to undertake her spiritual and material work for the people of Lady Selbourne despite the forces of apartheid. However, following the increased violence and activities of the police culminating in the Sharpeville Massacre of 21 March 1960, she found herself under surveillance. On 30 March 1960 she was arrested and held without charge, and without access to a lawyer until 21 May 1960, when she was deported. During this time she was held at Pretoria Central Gaol. She shared a cell with Helen Joseph. In 1962 she worked as Warden for the Mary Stuart Women's Hall at Makere University, Kampala, Uganda.

Following her return to England she wrote Go Well, Stay Well: South Africa, August 1956 to May 1960, describing her experiences in South Africa. Once she had returned home to Hampton Hill, she became involved in various campaigns including support for the Anti-Apartheid Movement. She also served as Secretary and Assistant Treasurer of the United Kingdom and Ireland Group of the World Conference on Religions and Peace. Hannah Stanton died on 9 December 1993.

Henry Marion Durand was born in 1812. He went out to India in 1829, arriving in May 1830, as Second Lieutenant in the Bengal Engineers. He was involved in the Indian Mutiny of 1857, as Agent to the Governor General of central India 1857-1858. By 1870 Durand was Lieutenant General of the Punjab. His prestigious career was unfortunately ended on 1 January 1871, when he died following an accident when he fell from an elephant whilst entering the town of Tank, with the local Maharajah.

Henry Mortimer Durand was born in 1850. He was educated at Blackheath School, Eton House, Tonbridge and at the Bar, Lincoln's Inn. He entered the Indian Civil Service, arriving in India on 1 February 1873. Durand rose up through the ranks of the Indian Civil Service, and from 1884 to 1894 was Foreign Secretary to the Government of India. This was followed by a period of service as British Envoy, at the Court of the Shah of Persia. In 1900 Durand was appointed British Ambassador to Spain, a post which he held until 1903. In 1903 he became British Ambassador to the United States of America, but was recalled at the end of 1906. Durand stood as Conservative and Unionist candidate in the election of 1910 for Plymouth, with Waldorf Astor, but failed. In addition to his work as a civil servant and diplomat, Durand wrote a number of novels and other works, including a biography of his father. Durand married Ella, daughter of Teignmouth Sandys, in 1875. They had two children, a son and daughter, Amy Josephine (Jo). Josephine accompanied her father on many official duties owing to her mother's ill health. Lady Durand died in May 1913, aged 60. Sir Henry Mortimer Durand died in 1924.

Mary Elizabeth (Diane) Noakes (née Bixby) was born on 30 December 1911 in Mile End, East London. She had a number of secretarial jobs, including working for the Toynbee Hall Settlement. In 1941 she volunteered into the Women's Royal Air Force, where she carried out welfare, educational and administrative duties, and attained the position of Sergeant. After the War she trained as a teacher at Borthwick Teacher Training College, London, and worked from 1947-1949 at Peckham Secondary School for Girls teaching commercial subjects.

In 1951, Diane Noakes was invited by the Ugandan African Farmers' Union to help resolve disputes. She was already Secretary of the Working Party of the Congress of Peoples Against Imperialism (later amalgamated with other organisations to become the Movement for Colonial Freedom), and went to Uganda in this capacity. She reached agreement over cotton ginning and established the Abalini Co-operative for farmers; she established a school and clinic, and a weaving factory was also set up for women. Although the Abalini Cooperative folded, the Abesigwa Coffee Co. Ltd. was established. In 1965 Diane Noakes was appointed to the paid position of Executive Secretary of the Central Council of the Indian Associations in Uganda. She was also involved with the establishment of the Uganda Children's Welfare Society.

Following her return from Uganda in 1958, she gained employment at the Kellogg International Corporation in London, and advanced to the position of Assistant Metallurgist. Socially, she was a member of the Labour Party and Political Education Officer for Thornton Ward, and was involved with the running of the Kellogg Corporation photography club. She retired in 1971 and bought a house near Shap, in the Lake District, where amongst other things she campaigned for 'Cumbrians for Peace'. Diane Noakes died on 21 November 1983, following a period of illness.

Marguerite K Jellicoe had a varied career in East Africa, during which time she worked as a Community Development Officer in the Singida District of Central Tanzania (c1962). She was later attached to the Makere University College, Kampala, Uganda, where she completed her PhD. Marguerite Jellicoe later worked for the United Nations in Zambia; and then returned to Britain to carry out her writing. She repeatedly paid visits to the Singida region, concentrating on the villages of Ihanja and Ikungi where she carried out a detailed study of the life of the local people, chronicling a community in transition, particularly the Rimi/Nyaturu.

Marguerite Jellicoe published The Long Path: a case study of social change in Wahi, Singida District, Tanzania (Nairobi, East African Publishing House, 1978). She died in May 1994.

James Philip Mills was born in 1890 and educated at Winchester School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1913 he joined the Indian Civil Service and served in North-East India until 1947. He was Sub-divisional officer at Mokokchung in the Naga Hills of Assam from 1917-1924 and Deputy Commissioner, based at Kohima, during the 1930s. In 1930 he married Pamela Vesey-Fitzgerald.

In 1930 he was appointed the Honorary Director of Ethnography for Assam. His first monograph, The Lhota Nagas, was published by the Government of Assam in 1922, followed by The Ao Nagas in 1926 and The Rengma Nagas in 1937. In 1942 he was awarded the Rivers Memorial Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute for anthropological fieldwork among the Nagas. In 1943 he was appointed as Advisor to the Governor for Tribal Areas and States, with overall responsibility for tribal matters in North-East India. This appointment enabled him to travel among and study for the first time tribal people living north of the Brahmaputra towards the Tibetan frontier, and to give permission to his good friend Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf, and also Ursula Graham-Bower, to enter this closed area and carry out their pioneering studies.

Mills was elected to the Council of the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1948 and served as its President from 1951-1953. In 1948 he became Reader in Language and Culture with special reference to South-East Asia at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Here he worked with Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf from the inception of the Department of Cultural Anthropology in 1950 until ill health forced his retirement in 1954.

Frederick William Hugh Migeod was born on 9 August 1872 in Chislehurst, Kent. Educated at Folkestone, he joined the Royal Navy Pay Department in 1889. In 1900 he began service with the Colonial Civil Service and was stationed in the Gold Coast until 1919. He then began a series of expeditions to Lake Chad, Cameroon, and Sierra Leone, and twice crossed equatorial Africa. From 1925-1927 and again in 1929 and 1931 he led a British Museum East Africa expedition to excavate dinosaur bones. Following his return to England he became a local councillor and Alderman in Worthing and was Chairman of the British Union for Abolition of Vivisection. He married Madeleine Marguerite Adrienne Charlotte Banks in 1925. He died on 8 July 1952.

Frederick Migeod's publications include The Languages of West Africa (1913), A Grammar of the Hausa Language (1914), Across Equatorial Africa (1923), Through Nigeria and Lake Chad (1924) and Through British Cameroons (1925).

Thomas Stanley Lane Fox-Pitt was born on 27 November 1897. From the age of 12 he attended the Royal Navy College, Osborne, and two years later the Royal Naval College, Dartford. When war was declared in 1914 he was mobilised for active service. He retired from the navy after the war and joined the Colonial Administrative Service in Northern Rhodesia in 1927. He was stationed at Balovale, then part of Barotseland, as a cadet in 1928 and appointed District Officer in 1930. In the same year he married Marjory Hope Barton.

From 1923 to 1939 he served on the Copperbelt, first as a District Officer at Ndola and then at Mpika. He was particularly concerned at the conditions of the mineworkers and represented their complaints to the Colonial Government. During the Second World War, Fox-Pitt served in the Royal Navy with a convoy escort in the North Atlantic. Afterwards he returned to the Copperbelt, this time to Kitwe. He spent two evenings a week teaching English in an African night school. In the face of great opposition from the Colonial Government he encouraged the emergent trade unions and helped them to forge links with the European miners' trade unions. As a result he was transferred from the Copperbelt to become acting Provincial Commissioner in Barotseland in 1948, and a year later to Fort Jameson in the Eastern Province. Again he became involved in a dispute over African labour, concerning the sale of flu-cured tobacco. In 1951 he was put on the retired list. He remained in Northern Rhodesia, living on a smallholding in Kitwe and working with African organisations in opposition to the growing possibility of a Central African Federation.

One of the most fervent opponents of federation was a Lithuanian, Simon Ber Zukas, who had returned to Northern Rhodesia at the beginning of 1951 but was deported the following year for 'conducting himself so as to be a danger to peace and good order in the territory'. He and Fox-Pitt worked very closely together for the same cause after Fox-Pitt's return to England in December 1952. Fox-Pitt's term as Secretary of 'Racial Unity' (1952-1953) spanned the advent and birth of the Central African Federation which received the Queen's Assent on 1 August 1953. In 1953 he became Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, co-operating closely with other anti-federation movements such as the Movement for Colonial Freedom and the nationalist Congress parties in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. It was decided after the return of Harold Macmillan's Conservative Government in November 1959, which supported federation, that the work of the campaign would have to go underground. From 1960, Fox-Pitt's energies were channelled largely into the London Committee of Kenneth Kaunda's United National Independence Party (UNIP). As a consequence he found himself embroiled in a libel case with Sir Roy Welensky. The magazine produced by the Committee had, in Fox-Pitt's absence, made an unsubstantiated claim that Welensky was involved in the death of the Secretary General of the United Nations. UNIP was fined 1000 dollars.

The Central African Federation was dissolved on 31 December 1963. Fox-Pitt attended the Zambia Independence celebrations in 1964 at which he received the Order of the Freedom of Zambia. For the next two years he served in the Local Government Department of the Independent Zambian Government and on a commission concerning civil service salaries. In 1966 he retired to England. He died in 1989.

James Norman Dalrymple Anderson was born on 29 September 1908. He was educated at St. Lawrence College, Ramsgate and later attended Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1930 and Bachelor of Laws in 1931. He went to Egypt in 1932, where he spent eight years as a missionary and later studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo. In 1939 he served with the guerrillas in the British Army, and in 1940 was made Arab liaison officer for the Libyan Arab Force. In 1945 he became Political Officer for Sanusi Affairs, and later Secretary for Arab Affairs in the Civil Affairs branch of GHQ Middle East. He was awarded the MBE in 1943 and the OBE in 1945.

In 1946 he attended the Foreign Ministers Conference as Adviser to Mr. Ernest Bevin, then Foreign Secretary, on the future of former Italian Colonies in the Middle East. He lectured on Islamic law in the Law Schools at Cambridge for three years, and thereafter moved to the School of Oriental and African Studies where he lectured from 1947 to 1971. He was the Professor of Oriental Laws in the University of London between 1954 and 1975. From 1949 to 1950, he spent six months on study leave in the Middle East (Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq) as part of a special study of modern developments in Islamic law. In 1950 he spent three months in East Africa (including Aden and Hadramaut) and in 1951, three months in West Africa making a Survey for the Colonial Office regarding the application of Islamic law in British African possessions.

He wrote and published several books and articles on Islamic Law in Eastern Africa, and on Islamic law and marriage and divorce in the Middle East. Anderson also wrote extensively on Christianity and comparative religion and was the first Chairman of the House of Laity, General Synod from 1970 to 1979. He was also Anglican delegate to the World Council of Churches.

Derek Alec Rawcliffe was born on 8 July 1921. He gained a BA from the University of Leeds. Following his training at Mirfield, he was made a Deacon in 1944. In 1945 he became a priest and was appointed to St. George's, Worcester. In 1947 he was posted to work in Melanesia as Assistant Master, and then Head Master at All Hallows School, Pawa, Solomon Islands (1949). From 1956-1958 he was Head Master at St. Mary's School, Maravovo, Solomon Islands. In 1959 he was appointed Archdeacon of Southern Melanesia. He was made first Bishop of New Hebrides in January 1974, leaving this post in 1980 to become Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway. From 1991 to 1996 he was Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Ripon. He was awarded an OBE in 1971.

James Trenchard Hardyman was born in Madagascar in 1918. He was the son of Arnold Victor Hardyman and Laura Hardyman (née Stubbs), who both worked as missionaries in Madagascar with the London Missionary Society from 1916-1938 and 1944-1950. As a child, James was sent to England to be educated under the guardianship of the Rev. and Mrs J. H. Haile. He became a missionary with the London Missionary Society in 1945. In the same year he married Marjorie Tucker.

From 1946-1974 they lived in Imerimandroso, Madagascar. In addition to his missionary work within the Antsihanaka area Hardyman became the Principal of the Imerimandroso College, training Malagasy pastors. Following his return to England, Hardyman worked as Honorary Archivist of the Council for World Mission at Livingstone House (1974-1991) and for the Conference of British Missionary Societies (1976-1988). In this capacity he oversaw the deposit of both archives at the School of Oriental and African Studies. From 1974-1983 he also worked for the Overseas Book Service of Feed the Minds.

At the age of eleven, Hardyman was given a second-hand copy of a book on Madagascar by Haile. The book, published anonymously in the 1840s, began his collection of published and unpublished material relating to Madagascar, which was to become the largest personal collection on Madagascar in existence. Hardyman used much of the material in his thesis, for which St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford, awarded him a B.D. in 1952. He continued to collect information on the subject throughout his life. James Trenchard Hardyman died on 1 October 1995.

Maurice Maybury was born in 1914. He served in Burma and was Sub-Divisional Officer, Kawkareik, when the Japanese crossed the border from Siam into Burma in 1942. He withdrew with the Army into India over the land route from northern Burma. He went on to serve as Permanent Secretary to the Reconstruction Department in Simla, India. As a Civil Affairs Officer, he later accompanied the Army through Burma, as part of the team restoring civil administration, ending in Mergui. After the capitulation of the Japanese in 1945 he reverted to civil status and became Deputy Commissioner at Mergui, c1945-1947. Maybury served in the Colonial Service in Uganda as Commissioner for Commerce in 1950-1960. He was also a member of the Legislative Council and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Social Services. At home in the UK he became a history master. From 1967 until 1974 he served as Adviser to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, Imperial Ethiopian Government. From 1975 until 1977 he was assigned to the Ministry of Finance, Commerce and Industry, Government of Lesotho, as Export Promotion Adviser. This appointment was made through the United Nations. The Commonwealth Secretariat later appointed him to a position in Malta. From there he retired. He was married with two sons. He died in 1995. Publications: memoirs [1984-6], comprising The daily round [volume 1], Flight of the Heaven-born (volume 2), and Swan-song of the Heaven-born (volume 3); Pearl of Africa (1991).

Barbara Whittingham Jones (married name Oppenheim) was a British journalist who spent some time living in Malaya. She became known for her forceful article 'Malaya Betrayed', which appeared in World Review, May 1946, during the Malayan Union controversy. The article caused a sensation throughout Malaya. In September 1947, she also became the first British correspondent to visit Patani, to observe the political oppression of the 700,000 Malays in this part of the Kingdom of Siam. She continued her work as a correspondent for various publications, covering political events in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. These publications included Eastern World, Straits Times, Straits Budget, letters to The Times, and radio broadcasts with Macassar Radio. Her husband was Henry Rolf Oppenheim (1902-1987).

David Lockhart Robertson Lorimer was born on 24 December 1876. He entered the Indian Army in 1896. From 1898 to 1903 he served with the QVO Corps of Guides, and was seconded with the Khalibar Rifles from 1901 to 1903. He entered the Indian Political Service in 1903, serving with them until 1924. His posts included HBMS Vice-Consul for Arabistan (1903-1909); Political Agent, Bahrein (1911-1912); HM Consul, Kerman and Persian Baluchistan, and ex-officio Assistant to the Political Resident, Persian Gulf (1912-1914); Assistant Political Agent, Chitral (1915); on field service with the IEFD, Mesopotamia, and Civil Governor Amara (1915-1916); HM Consul Kerman and Persian Baluchistan (1916-1917); Political Agent, Loralai, Baluchistan (1920); and Political Agent, Gilgit (1920-1924). Lorimer was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for 1933-1935. He also received an honorary fellowship of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in 1953.

Lorimer's publications included Syntax of Colloquial Pashtu (1915); Persian Tales (1919); The Phonology of the Bakhtiari, Badakshani, and Madaglashti Dialects of Modern Persian (1922); The Burushaski Language, volumes I and II (1935), and volume III (1938); The Dumaki Language (1939); The Wakhi Language (1958).

Robert Hart (Chinese name He De) was born in Milltown, Co Armagh, on 20 February 1835. He was educated at Queen's College, Taunton, Wesley College, Dublin, and Queen's College, Belfast, where he received a BA in 1853. The following year he entered the consular service, working in Hong Kong, Ningo and Canton before resigning in 1859 to join the Chinese Maritime Customs. After working as Deputy Commissioner in Canton and Commissioner in Shanghai he was appointed as the first Inspector General in 1863. He held this post for nearly fifty years until his death and his commitment to the service led him to refuse the post of British Minister to China in 1885. As well as his work in the Customs he was used by the Quing government to further their aims in dealing with foreign powers. He became supreme advisor to Zongli Yamen (the Chinese office dealing with foreign affairs). On behalf of the Quing government he arranged the Lisbon Protocol in 1885 after negotiations with the Portugese over Macao. He negotiated with the Indian government over Sikkim and with the British over navigation of the Yangtze River. His efforts led to his receiving honours from a number of countries including Italy, Portugal, Norway, and Holland, and a number of Chinese honours. He gained an honorary doctorate in 1882. He was also asked to help with efforts towards 'modernisation' such as the establishment of the Chinese postal system and the establishment of Tong Wen Guan (Institute of Education).

In 1866 he married Hestor Jane Bredon and they had three children including a son, Bruce, who took over from J D Campbell in the London office in 1907. He also had three children from an earlier liaison with a Chinese woman. These children he supported as his 'wards'. Hestor's brother, Robert, was also a member of the Chinese Maritime Customs and became Acting Inspector General when Hart returned to England from 1908 until 1910. In 1901 he wrote These from the Land of Sinim. He died on 20 September 1911.

James Duncan Campbell was born in Edinburgh in 1833. Educated at Cheltenham College and the universities of Paris and Heidelberg, he worked for the Post Office and the Treasury before 1862. In that year he joined the Chinese Maritime Customs and became non-resident secretary in London in 1874. He was sent to Paris in 1884 by Robert Hart to negotiate on behalf of the Quing government a cease-fire agreement in the Sino-French War. He married Ellen Mary Lewis in 1870. He died on 3 December 1907.

Edward Charles MacIntosh Bowra was born in 1841. He was educated at the City of London College before entering the Civil Service and gaining a position in the London Customs House. However, in July 1860 he gave this up to join the British Legion of Garibaldi's Red Shirts in Italy, where his exploits included fighting a duel over the honour of the British contingent. Returning to England he worked briefly for the 1861 census whilst trying unsuccessfully to join the Chinese Consular service. In 1862 he became Private Secretary to Sir William Verner, MP for Armagh, and the following year was appointed clerk in the Chinese Maritime Customs, journeying out to China on the same boat as J. D. Campbell. After an initial spell in Tientsin he was sent to Shanghai in August 1863. From 1864 he served as a student interpreter in Peking, and in September 1865 he was appointed interpreter in Canton. When the Chinese Secretary of Customs, Pin Chun, was sent on a European tour Bowra was appointed to organise the trip. In March 1866 they set off for Europe visiting London, Paris, the Hague, Copenhagen, Stockholm, St. Petersburg and Berlin. Whilst in England Bowra became re-acquainted with a family friend, Thirza Woodward, whom he married on 15 August. On his return to China he was sent to Ningo and his children Ethel and Cecil were born there. Following a transfer to Canton in 1870 he worked on a history of the province which was published in the China Review. He was promoted to Deputy Commissioner in 1872 and was made responsible for the collection and transportation of objects to be exhibited at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873, following which the Austrian Emperor gave him the Order of the Iron Crown. His youngest son, also called Edward, was born in May 1874 whilst the Bowras were still on leave in England. On 15 October Bowra died at the age of thirty-two after complaining of ill health for a number of months.

Cecil Arthur Verner Bowra, eldest son of Edward Charles MacIntosh Bowra, was born on 22 August 1869. His father's early death caused the family some financial hardship but Cecil was educated at Park House School, Gravesend and then at St. Paul's. Although he matriculated from London University his mother, now married to George Mackie, insisted he should leave school at sixteen. He thus applied to the Chinese Maritime Customs with the recommendation of Sir Robert Hart. In 1886 he arrived in China, firstly living in Peking as a language student and then moving to Tientsin. He then worked in Chefoo (1888-1890), Canton (1890) and Amoy (1891). On home leave he met Ethel Fleay and they were married in 1896, returning to Chefoo where two years later Bowra was appointed to Second Assistant. In 1899 he was made Assistant-in-Charge at Newchwang, Southern Manchuria, where he had to maintain relations between the large Russian presence and his Chinese employers. As the Boxer Rebellion took hold in 1900 Cecil Bowra was made Commander of the Combined Defence Force; however, it was the Russian forces who took control when Newchwang was attacked, and in 1903 he was replaced by a Russian Commissioner. Following further periods of employment in Soochow and Amoy and a period of home leave, Bowra became Senior Commissioner in Manchuria, and Advisor to the Viceroy in 1908. With the appointment of Sir Francis Aglen as Inspector-General Bowra was made Chief Secretary in Peking (1910-1923). The post meant that he became Acting Inspector-General when Aglen was on leave in 1911 and 1917. Bowra retired in 1923 having received such honours as the Order of the Rising Sun from the Japanese government, the Norwegian Order of St. Olaf and the Chinese awards of the Red Button and the Second Class of the Striped Tiger. He died in 1947.

Peter Malcolm Holt was born on 28 November 1918. He was educated at Lord William's Grammar School and later at Oxford University, where he obtained Master of Arts and D. Litt degrees. He joined the Sudan Civil Service, Ministry of Education in 1941, where he served until 1953. He was appointed Government Archivist from 1954-1955. In 1955 he returned to the United Kingdom and joined the School of Oriental and African Studies. In 1964 he was made Professor of Arabic History. From 1975-1982 he was Professor of History of the Near and Middle East at the University of London. In 1980 the Republic of Sudan awarded him the Gold Medal of Science, Letters and Art.

His publications include The Mahdist State in the Sudan 1881-1898 (1958); The Modern History of Sudan (1961); Historians of the Middle East (co-ed. with B. Lewis, 1962); Political and Social Change in Modern Egypt (1968); The Cambridge History of Islam (co-ed. with A. K. S. Lambton & B. Lewis, 1970); and Studies in the History of the Near East (1973).

Roland Michell was born on 14 February 1847. He was educated at Christ Church College, Oxford. He lived in Egypt for many years, initially as Tutor to Prince Ibrahim Pasha, son of the Khedive of Egypt, 1870-1878. He later served as Chief of the Statistical Department, Revenue Survey of Egypt, 1878-1879, and Commissioner of Limassol, Cyprus, 1879-1911. He published two works, An Egyptian Calendar for the Koptic Year 1295 (Alexandria, 1877), and An Egyptian Calendar for the Koptic Year 1617 (London, 1900). He died on 9 March 1931.

Anthony John Arkell was born on 29 July 1898. Educated at Bradfield College and Queen's College, Oxford he was a member of the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War and received a military cross in 1918. In 1920 he joined the Sudan Political Service serving from 1921-1924 as Assistant District Commissioner for Darfur Province and then becoming acting Resident at Dar Masalit (1925-1926). He followed this with a period as District Commissioner for Kosti (White Nile Province) from 1926-1929 and then for Sennar (Blue Nile Province) from 1929-1932. In 1928 he married Dorothy Davidson (d. 1945) and was also awarded an MBE. He received the Order of the Nile (Fourth Class) in 1931. He was Deputy Governor for Darfur from 1932-1937. Arkell worked for the Sudanese Government as Commissioner for Archaeology and Anthropology from 1938-1948 as well as being the Chief Transport Officer 1940-1944 and Editor of Sudan Notes and Records, 1945-1948.

From 1948-1953, Arkell was a lecturer in Egyptology at University College, London whilst remaining Archaeological Adviser to the Sudanese Government. In 1950 he married his second wife, Joan Burnell. He was appointed Reader in Egyptian Archaeology in 1953 and held this post as well as that of Curator of the Flinders Petrie Collection of Egyptian Antiquities at University College, London until his retirement in 1963. Following his retirement Arkell entered the Church, becoming Vicar of Cuddington with Dinton from 1963 until 1971. He died on 26 Feb 1980.

Arkell's publications include Early Khartoum (1949); The Old Stone Age in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1949); Shaheinab (1953); History of Sudan from Early Times to 1821 (1955; 2nd. ed. 1961); Wanyanga (1964); and The Prehistory of the Nile Valley (1975).

D W Arnott was Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Publications include: The nominal and verbal systems of Fula (1970); supplementary bibliography in Diedrich Hermann Westermann and Margaret Arminel Bryan's The languages of West Africa (1970).

The Restatement of African Law Project was a research initiative based at the Department of Law at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), active from the 1950s to the 1970s. Dr Antony N Allott (1924-2002), successively Lecturer, 1948, Reader, 1960, Professor, 1964, and Emeritus Professor, 1987, of African Law at SOAS, was involved in the project and edited the resulting series of publications (published by Sweet and Maxwell from 1968).

(Edward) Denison Ross was born in London on 6 June 1871. From Marlborough he went to University College London. In 1894 he was awarded a Doctorate in Persian from Strasbourg University and in 1896 was appointed Professor of Persian at University College London.

In 1901 he went to India as Principal of the Madrasah Muslim College (Calcutta) and in 1911 this post was combined with that of Officer in Charge of Records of the Government of India and Assistant Secretary in the Department of Education. As a Fellow of Calcutta University and an active member of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, he did not confine himself to Islamic Studies but gained some knowledge of Sanskrit and Chinese and a more profound knowledge of Tibetan. He married Dora Robinson in 1904. He was made Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire in 1912.

Denison Ross returned to Britain in 1914 to become First Assistant in the British Museum, where he was appointed to catalogue the Stein Collection. On the outbreak of the War he joined the Postal Censorship Department and the Department of Military Intelligence, where he prepared vocabularies in several languages. In 1916 he was made the first Director of the newly founded School of Oriental Studies (later the School of Oriental and African Studies). He was knighted in 1918. He remained as Director of the School until 1937. In 1939 he was sent as Head of the British Information Bureau in Istanbul where he died on 23 September 1940, a few months after his wife.

Leonard John Barnes was born in London on 21 July 1895. He was educated at St. Paul's School in Hammersmith and served in the First World War in the King's Royal Rifle Corps. He was wounded three times and awarded the Military Cross with bar. In 1919 he went to University College, Oxford. Following the completion of his degree he entered the Colonial Office for a short time. He then went to South Africa, where he worked as a farmer, and later as a journalist in Cape Town. He returned to England in 1932 and wrote The New Boer War documenting his experiences overseas. Barnes concentrated on his writing on colonial and development issues until in 1936 he was appointed lecturer in education at the University of Liverpool. In 1943 he married Margaret (Peggy). Barnes was a member of the Carr-Saunders Commission to Malaya in the late 1940s to enquire into education provision and the foundation of a university. In 1947 the Barneses moved to Oxford following his appointment as Secretary and Director of the Delegacy for Social Training in Oxford University (later the Department of Social and Administrative Studies). Barnes stayed at Oxford until his retirement in 1962.

Following his retirement, he visited Central and East Africa several times under the auspices of the United Nations Economic Commission. He was employed as a consultant to examine how African countries were coping with modernisation and sociological problems. In 1973 he was invited by Kenneth Kaunda to report on Zambia's political and economic problems, resulting in Zambia 1973: Comment and Appraisal. He was a prolific writer, publishing a large number of books on the situation in Africa, educational problems, the Empire and the Commonwealth. He also wrote poetry and biographical material. He died on 10 March 1977.

In the early 20th century teaching of Asian and African languages in London was inferior to provision in other European capitals, being distributed among the colleges of London University and other institutions. This unsatisfactory situation was addressed by the Reay Committee which reported in 1908 recommending that the teaching should be concentrated in a single school and should be broadened to include the history, geography, culture, law and literature of Asia and Africa as well as including a major library. The Report also recommended that the proposed school should be part of the University of London. A Committee of Management was established in 1913 and the School of Oriental Studies received its Royal Charter in June 1916, admitting its first students in the following year. At that time it was housed in Finsbury Circus in the former building of the London Institution. Construction of the first phase of the current premises, within the main University of London campus, began in 1938, when the present name of the School of Oriental and African Studies was adopted, and they were fully occupied by 1946. This move reinforced the importance of the academic role of the School which in the early years had been secondary to the practical teaching also required by the School's Charter, although a Departmental system had been introduced in 1932. War with Japan in 1941 had also shown the need for training in Asian languages and the School responded by inventing and delivering crash courses for service personnel. This influenced the establishment of the Scarborough Commission which reported in 1946 recognising the School's central position in Asian and African Studies and recommending a programme of expansion. However the School's post-war development was curtailed by public economies.

During the later 1950s the School concentrated on extending its accommodation, increasing its undergraduate numbers and developing the study of modern Asia and Africa with the establishment of new Departments of Geography, Economics and Politics. An Extramural Division was also established which took Asian and African Studies into schools and teacher training. Another innovation in the 1960s was the creation of five Area Centres to facilitate cross-disciplinary research and organise the new one-year taught MA courses. Development of postgraduate courses offset the decline in undergraduate numbers due to the development of higher education in Asian and African countries and a reorganisation of the undergraduate courses ensured that the 1960s was a period of growth. The new building, with the Library as its central feature, opened in 1973 but the following decade brought cuts in university funding and the School was further hit by the implementation of full-cost fees for overseas students which necessitated a major restructuring. Eventually the University Grants Committee (UGC) were persuaded to commission a report on the needs of business and government for Asian and African Studies. The resulting Parker Report of 1986 highlighted the decline in provision in the university sector but the increasing demand from government and business for expertise and proposed measures to redress the balance. A further boost for the School was the introduction of non-formula funding to protect its work in the early 1990s. In 1995 the Brunei Gallery and Teaching Block was opened; the School also acquired the former Faber & Faber building in Russell Square and opened its first student residence in 1996. By this time the School had a student population of more than 2,500 and considerable distance learning provision.