The School of Oriental Studies (later the School of Oriental and African Studies) was founded as part of the University of London to address inadequacy of teaching in Asian languages in London - hitherto dispersed among various colleges of London University and other institutions - and to cater for the study of Asian history, geography, culture, law and literature, as well as including a library. It opened in 1917, occupying premises in Finsbury Circus formerly occupied by the London Institution (which had amalgamated with the Society of Arts in 1906). Its library received substantial collections of books transferred from other London institutions.
Arthur Jermy Mounteney Jephson: born in Brentwood, Essex, 1858; educated at Tonbridge School, 1869-1874; a cadet with the Merchant Navy, serving on HMS Worcester, 1874-1876; joined the Antrim regiment of the Royal Irish Rifles, 1880; resigned his commission, 1884; accompanied H M Stanley's expedition to relieve Emin Pasha in Central Africa, 1887-1889; Medallist, Royal Geographical Society and Royal Brussels Geographical Society, 1890; following his return from Africa, suffered ill health, and his attempts to return to Africa were frustrated; Queen's Messenger, 1895-1901; King's Messenger from 1901; died, 1908. Publications include: Emin Pasha and the rebellion at the equator: a story of nine month's experiences in the last of the Soudan provinces ... with the revision and co-operation of Henry M Stanley (1890); Stories told in an African forest (1893).
Emin Pasha: born in Germany, 1840; originally named Eduard Schnitzer; a physician and explorer; served under General Charles Gordon in Sudan as a district medical officer, 1876-1878; succeeded Gordon as governor of Equatoria, the southernmost province of the Egyptian Sudan, 1878; isolated from the outside world by the Mahdist uprising, 1885; European explorers including H M Stanley were sent to rescue him, 1887; eventually agreed to accompany Stanley to Mombasa, 1889; murdered while engaged in exploration for Germany in the Lake Tanganyika region, 1892.
Sir Henry Morton Stanley: born in Denbigh, Wales, 1841; originally named John Rowlands; Anglo-American journalist and empire builder; took the name of his adoptive father in New Orleans; became a naturalized US citizen; fought in the American Civil War; became a journalist; commissioned to go to Africa to find the explorer David Livingstone, whom he located on Lake Tanganyika, 1871; returned to England with news of his discovery; led a second expedition to further Livingstone's explorations, 1874-1877; followed the Congo River from its source to the sea; accepted the invitation of Leopold II of Belgium to head another expedition, and helped to organize the future Independent State of the Congo, 1879-1884; at the Berlin Conference (1884-1885), instrumental in obtaining American support for Leopold's Congo venture; his last African journey was to find Emin Pasha, 1887-1889; again became a British subject, 1892; sat in Parliament, 1895-1900; Knight, 1899; died, 1904. Publications include: In Darkest Africa (1890), giving his account of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition.
Mary Benson was born in South Africa in 1919. After a period spent travelling in Europe and the United States she enlisted in the South African Women's Army as a Personal Assistant and was sent to the Middle East, Italy, Greece and Austria. Following the War she became secretary to the film director, David Lean. On reading Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country in 1948, she became friendly with the author and determined to involve herself more fully in South African politics. From 1950-1956 she assisted the radical Anglican priest, Rev. Michael Scott and helped to found the African Bureau in London. In 1957, Mary Benson became Secretary of the Treason Trials Defence Fund. Her biography of Tshekedi Khama was published in 1960 and then in 1963 The African Patriots: The Story of the African National Congress of South Africa. In May 1963 she became the first South African to testify at the Committee on Apartheid at the United Nations, risking imprisonment on her return by calling for sanctions. In February 1966 she was banned and placed under house arrest until she went into exile later that spring.
Mary Benson's other writings include a novel, At the Still Point (1969), South Africa: The Struggle for a Birthright (an update of African Patriots) (1966), and Nelson Mandela (1986). She also edited Athol Fugard's Notebooks (1983) and has written a number of radio plays.
Laura Elsie Beckingsale was born on 1st September 1886 in Camden Town, North London. She was educated privately at first, and then attended Bestraven High School, Brondesbury, until she was eighteen. After teaching for a year elsewhere, she returned to Bestraven as a member of staff. At the age of twenty-three she entered the Women's Missionary College, Edinburgh, and in March 1911, went to Wuchang, China, with the London Missionary Society. She remained there until 1915, when she returned to England under medical advice, arriving March 1. A year later she resigned her connection with the London Missionary Society and joined the Baptist Missionary Society, for work in China. She was put in charge of a girl's boarding school at Tai Yuanfu Shansi. She finally returned to England in 1939. Laura Beckingsale never married. She died in 1983.
The Chin Hills Battalion was formed in 1894.
Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi was born on 27 August 1928, in what is now the province of Kwazulu-Natal. He was the son of Chief Mathole Buthelezi and Princess Magogo. He was educated at Fort Hare University. He joined the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League while attending college. In 1952 he married Irene Audrey Thandekile Mzila. In 1953 he became Chief of the Buthelezi tribe. He was involved in the administration of the Zulu people from 1953-1968. In 1976 he became the first Chief Minister of Kwazulu (the 'Bantustan' designated for Zulu people under the system of Apartheid). He also revived Inkatha Yenkululeko Yesizwe, the Zulu National Cultural Liberation Movement, as an anti-apartheid organisation, now the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). In the 1980's tensions mounted between Inkatha and the ANC, and the early 1990's saw increasingly violent clashes between supporters of the two parties. Buthelezi was particularly opposed to the ANC's support for international sanctions against Apartheid. Inkatha boycotted the 1993 multiparty talks that wrote the new South African constitution, but participated in South Africa's first multiracial elections in 1994. In 1994, Buthelezi was appointed Minister of Home Affairs in the cabinet of President Nelson Mandela. In June 1999, Buthelezi declined a conditional offer by the South African President Elect Thabo Mbeki to be Deputy President. The post was offered in exchange for his party's surrender of leadership of Kwazulu-Natal province. It was decided to retain Buthelezi as Minister for Home Affairs when these negotiations collapsed.
Silas Modiri Molema was born c1891, in Mafeking, South Africa. He attended the Lovedale Institution and the University of Georgia, qualifying in medicine in 1919. In 1921 he returned to Mafeking to work as a doctor. From the 1940s he was involved in the African National Congress, and was elected National Treasurer in December 1949. He resigned in 1953. He died in 1965.
His publications included The Bantu Past and Present: An Ethnographical and Historical Study of the Native Races of South Africa (1920); Montshiwa 1815-1896: BaRolong Chief and Patriot (1966); and Chief Moroka: His Life, His Country and His People (1987).
Born, 1921; educated at Tonbridge School; attended Magdalene College, Cambridge (Scholar, MA, PhD); Bye-Fellow, Magdalene College, Cambridge, 1947-1949; Lecturer and Senior Lecturer, University College of the Gold Coast, 1949-1955; Professor of History, 1955-1959; Deputy Principal, 1957-1959; Lecturer in African History, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1959-1963; Professor of African History, University of Birmingham, 1963-1984; Director, Centre of West African Studies, 1963-1982; Deputy Dean, Faculty of Arts, 1973-1975; Dean, 1975-1978; Pro-Vice-Chancellor, 1979-1984; Vice-Principal 1981-1984; Emeritus Professor of History; Fellow of the Royal Historical Society; Honorary Fellow, School of Oriental and African Studies. Publications include: 'The achievement of self-government in southern Rhodesia, 1898-1923' (PhD thesis, 1949); An atlas of African history (1958); with Roland Oliver, A short history of Africa (1962); edited Africa discovers her past (1970); edited, with Roland Oliver, Papers on African Prehistory (1970); A history of Africa (1978); edited The Cambridge history of Africa, vol 2 (1978); Black Africa in time-perspective: four talks on wide historical themes, ed P E H Hair (1990); and other publications relating to West Africa and African history. With Roland Oliver, edited the Journal of African History, 1960-1973, and joint general editor of The Cambridge History of Africa (8 vols, 1975-1986).
Publications: Federalism and higher education in East Africa (1974); edited Labour and unions in Asia and Africa: contemporary issues (1988); edited Trade unions and the new industrialization of the Third World (1988); Imperialism or solidarity? International labour and South African trade unions (1995); edited, with Tsoeu Petlane, Democratisation and demilitarisation in Lesotho: the general election of 1993 and its aftermath (1995); edited, with John Daniel and Morris Szeftel, Voting for democracy: watershed elections in contemporary anglophone Africa (1999); edited Opposition and democracy in South Africa (2001).
Teddy Wedlock worked for the Admiralty. From 1924-1928 he and his wife Dora were stationed at Wei-hai-wei Naval Dockyard, North China, where he served as Second Officer to Mr Lofts, the Store Officer to the Naval Dockyard. From 1929-1931, the Wedlocks were based at the Royal Naval Dockyard at Trincomalee in Ceylon. From 1931-1932, they were stationed at HM Naval Dockyard, Hong Kong. Whilst there, they lived in a suite of rooms in the Knutsford Hotel in Kowloon. Dora Wedlock had a strong interest in the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Born, 1865; lived at Herston, Swanage, Dorset; attended a preparatory institute, 1890; sent to work as Lay Agent for the Uganda Mission of the Church Missionary Society, 1891; his connection with the Church Missionary Society ended when he returned to England (possibly due to ill health), 1892.
David Gamble was employed by the Colonial Office during the late 1940s and 1950s, and his published works include extensive monographs on the Fula, Wolof and Mandinka languages of the Gambia. He has also written extensively on Fula custom and the history of the Gambia, and worked at the Department of Anthropology, San Francisco State University, during the 1970s and 1980s. The Fula language is spoken in an area from the Gambia to Guinea Bissau, West Africa. Publications: Contributions to a socio-economic survey of the Gambia (Colonial Office Research Department, 1949); Economic Conditions in Two Mandinka Villages (Colonial Office Research Department, 1953); Mandinka Reading Book (1956); The Wolof of Senegambia ... with notes on the Lebu and the Serer (1957); Bibliography of the Gambia (1967); with Louise Sperling, A general bibliography of the Gambia [1979]; The Gambia (c1988); edited, with P E H Hair, Richard Jobson's The discovery of River Gambra (1999).
The Chinese Maritime Customs (formerly the Imperial Maritime Customs) collected customs duties from foreign ships and administered port facilities on behalf of the Chinese Government. It was managed mainly by foreigners, largely British. The appointment of a new Inspector-General in 1928 caused controversy between the Chinese and British governments, having implications for Western business interests in China and relations between the two countries.
Born in India, 1898; educated at Rossall School; joined the Machine Gun Corps, 1917; served in France, Germany and southern Russia, 1917-1920; joined the Colonial Administrative Service, 1920; Administrative Officer, Northern Nigeria, 1920-1933; Acting Principal Assistant Secretary, Nigerian Secretariat, 1934-1936; Assistant Resident Commissioner and Government Secretary, Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1936; Resident Commissioner, Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1937-1942; Resident Commissioner, Basutoland, 1942-1946; Knight,1946; Governor and Commander-in-Chief, Sarawak, 1946-1949; Governor and Commander-in-Chief, Gold Coast, 1949-1957; oversaw the independence of Ghana as first Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief, 1957; retired, 1957; Honorary DCL, Durham, 1958; Chairman of the Royal African Society, 1959; Chairman of the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind, 1959; Chairman of the National Council for the Supply of Teachers Overseas, 1960; member of the Monckton Commission on central Africa, 1960; died, 1962.
Following the advances of the British South Africa Company (incorporated in 1889), northern Rhodesia (later Zambia) became a territory of the British Crown in 1894. Missionary work in northern Rhodesia, a remote and thinly settled region, was pioneered in the last decades of the 19th century.
The donor of these manuscripts, the Rev Canon James Smith Robertson (b 1917), served the UMCA (Universities Mission to Central Africa) in northern Rhodesia, 1945-1950, and worked in Mapanza, 1950-1955, and Lusaka, 1955-1965.
Richard Henry Sabin: born at New Barnet (Hertfordshire), 1904; studied theology at Cheshunt College, Cambridge; BA (Cantab); appointed London Missionary Society (LMS) missionary to Mbereshi, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia); ordained at New Barnet Congregational Church, 1932; married Lucy Mary Hawkins (d 1933), 1932; sailed to Africa, 1932; his service included work at the Bible School for the training of African ministers; married, secondly, Mary Gladstone Hayward (d 1989), 1938; two children, Pauline Mary (b 1939) and Christopher Hubert Henry (b 1940); resigned his connection with the LMS and accepted the pastorate of Claremont Congregational Church, Cape Town, 1941; returned to England, 1944; subsequently Africa Secretary to the United Society for Christian Literature, and minister of churches in Ilkley (Yorkshire), Great Yarmouth (Norfolk), and Wolverhampton (Staffordshire); died in Middesex Hospital, 1969. Richard Sabin's aunt, Margaret Sabin (1887-1978), also served the London Missionary Society at Mbereshi.
The Second Boer War commenced in 1899 when the Transvaal and the Orange Free State declared war on Britain. Initial victories by Boer forces included the capture of Mafeking. Kimberley and Ladysmith were besieged. British reinforcements arrived in 1900 and Kimberley and Ladysmith were relieved, to be followed by Mafeking. The Boer states were annexed by the British and, although the Boers continued a guerrilla campaign, hostilities ended in 1902 with the Treaty of Vereeniging.
Cecil John Rhodes, born in 1853, first went to South Africa in 1870. He was a prominent figure in the history of South Africa as a businessman (he had interests in the Kimberley diamond fields and was founder of the De Beers mining company) and imperial politician (prime minister of Cape Colony, 1890-1896). During the Second Boer War he commanded troops at Kimberley and was besieged there. He died in South Africa in 1902 and was buried in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe).
The Boxer Uprising (1898-1900) was a movement against Western influence in China. A secret anti-foreign society, the Boxers (Ch'uan), undertook attacks on foreigners from 1899. In 1900 the Boxers occupied Peking (Beijing). The siege was lifted later that year by an international force which ended the Uprising.
Born in Aberdeen, 1848; moved with her family to Dundee; began work in the linen mills aged 11, c1859; came under the influence of a local minister and became leader of a Christian youth club; felt a call to serve in Calabar, Nigeria; the United Presbyterian Church Mission Committee eventually agreed to send her to Calabar as a mission teacher, 1876; went to work alone among the Okoyong, 1888; lived in traditional housing with outcast women and twins she had rescued, dressing simply; pioneered an alternative way of engaging in mission; as British colonial authority proceeded inland she worked among the people affected, 1903; as a result, new stations were created; continued to live as head of a household of African women and children until her death at Use, 1915.
The first mission of the London Missionary Society to Siberia was begun in 1818. Missionaries itinerated and evangelised among the nomadic inhabitants. Edward Stallybrass (c1793-1884) and William Swan (1791-1866) served there until the mission was suppressed by the Russian government in 1840, and the missionaries returned to Britain in 1841.
In the colonial period Cameroon was divided between French and British influence. The French Cameroons achieved independence in 1960. Soon afterwards the British territory was divided, the northern zone being united with Nigeria and the southern incorporated with Cameroon. Agriculture is important to the economy, with bananas among the significant exports.
Dr Humphrey Fisher was Reader in the History of Africa at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Publications include: Ahmadiyyah: a study in contemporary Islam on the West African coast (1963); with Allan George Barnard Fisher, Slavery and Muslim society in Africa: the institution in Saharan and Sudanic Africa, and the trans-Saharan trade (1970); edited Benjamin Anderson's Narrative of a journey to Musardu, the capital of the Western Mandingoes ... with Narrative of the expedition despatched to Musahdu by the Liberian government ... in 1874 ... (1971); joint translator of Gustav Nachtigal's Sahara and Sudan [1971-]; joint editor of Rural and urban Islam in West Africa (Asian and African studies, vol xx no 1, 1986).
George E Cormack was born in 1886. He spent the period 1913-1917 in Manchuria as a business representative, returning to Britain escorting a gang of Chinese labourers destined for the Chinese Labour Corps. He served with the British Expeditionary Force in North Russia between 1918-1919 and this was followed by a brief sojourn in South Russia, 1919-1920. He then worked in Estonia and Latvia as a shipping agent, 1924-1940. He returned to northern Russia from 1941-1942 as a Ministry of War Transport representative with the Murmansk convoys. He died in 1959.
Henry Herbert Dodwell was born in 1879. He was educated at Thames Grammar School and St. John's College, Oxford. He married Lily May in 1908. He was Professor of History and Culture of the British Dominions in Asia at the School of Oriental and African Studies from 1922-1946. He edited two volumes of The Cambridge History of India (Cambridge University Press, 1929 and 1932) and The Founder of Modern Egypt: a study of Muhamad 'Ali (1931). He died on 13 June 1946.
Born in London, 1801; son of a leather merchant; studied at St John's College, Cambridge; BA, 1824; MA, 1832; ordained in the Anglican church; the family emigrated to America, 1833; appointed Rector of St Peter's, New York, and Librarian of the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States; was dismissed after preaching a Thanksgiving sermon advocating emancipation of slaves, 1835; returned to London and became curate of Tooting (Surrey); given responsibility for the guardianship of two princes from the Gold Coast, (John) Ossoo Ansah (c1822-1884), son of the reigning king of Ashanti, and his cousin (William) Quanti Massah (Nkwantamisa) (d 1859), 1840; the princes had been sent as hostages under a peace treaty of 1831 between the Ashantis and the British government and it was felt that they would benefit from a trip to England, including her manufacturing towns; Pyne was subsequently perpetual curate of St Paul, Hook, near Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, 1843-1873; married Elizabeth (d 1911), daughter of Thomas Waters, 1860; believed in the power of hypnosis, advocated teetotalism, and opposed capital punishment; died, 1873. Publications included: translation of Pagan Rome (1839); Vital Magnetism: a remedy (1844); Judaea libera; or, the Eligibility of the Jews ... to Parliaments (1850); The Law of Kindness (1850); The Sabbath: its origin and perpetuity vindicated, from the Old and New Testaments [1850?]; A Glance at the Heavens, or, Sketch of Modern Astronomy (1852); A Memoir of the Rev R F Walker [1855]; translation of César Henri Abraham Malan's Traits of Romanism in Switzerland [1859?]. For further information see Maboth Moseley, 'The Ashanti Hostages in Britain', West Africa, 1 Nov 1952, p 1013.
James Sibree Milledge was born in 1930. He worked for the London Missionary Society in South India from 1961 to 1972. He married Betty Avril (née Astle) in 1956. He belongs to a large family of missionaries (named both Milledge and Sibree) who worked in a number of regions for the London Missionary Society, but in particular Madagascar. The most famous of these missionary ancestors was James Sibree.
Harry Undy was born in 1932. He joined the London Missionary Society in 1959. He worked in Southern Rhodesia until 1974 (continuing work with the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa from its inception in 1967). Amongst his roles in Southern Rhodesia he taught at Hope Fountain. He married Sheila Cheetham in 1954.
Thomas Beighton: born at Ednaston, Derbyshire, 1790; studied at Gosport; appointed to the Malacca mission of the London Missionary Society (LMS); ordained at Derby, 1817; married Abigail Tobitt; sailed to Malacca via Madras with his wife, 1818; stationed at Penang, 1819; carried out missionary work in Penang, the Malayan Peninsula, and the Queda coast, particularly educational work and translation; responsible for the mission printing press at Penang, which produced materials in Malay and English; died in Penang, 1844. Publications: various Christian texts published in Malay, 1836-1841.
Abigail Beighton (née Tobitt): born, 1791; engaged in missionary work in female education; returned to England, 1846; died at Barnet, 1879.
Lionel Henry (Harry) Lamb was born on 9 July 1900. He was the son of Sir Harry Harling Lamb (1857-1948), GBE, KCMG, a member of the British diplomatic service, and his wife Sabina (née Maissa). He was educated at Winchester College, and at Queen's College, Oxford, from 1918 to 1920. In December 1921 Lionel Lamb was appointed to HM Consular Service in China, a time of turbulence in China which saw the rise of the Communist Party and later the Nationalist Party (KMT). In 1935, while the National Government ruled, he was appointed as Consul (Grade II) and was stationed first in Shanghai until 1937 - the year of the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War - and then in Peking until 1940. Whilst in Peking, he was promoted to Consul (Grade I). He returned to Shanghai as Superintending Consul and Assistant Chinese Secretary in 1940. He was interned at Shanghai by the Japanese from December 1941 to August 1942. In 1943 he was transferred to St Paul-Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, for a short period, returning to the British Embassy in Chunking as Chinese Counsellor in 1945. From 1947 to 1949, coinciding with the last years of the civil war in China, he was HM Minister at Nanking. After the establishment of the Communist regime and the People's Republic of China, he was appointed to the post of Charg d'Affairs at Peking, which he held from 1951 to 1953. His last appointment before he retired from diplomatic service was as Ambassador to Switzerland from 1953 to 1958. During his career he received various honours: OBE 1944, KCMG 1953 (CMG 1948). In 1927 he married Jean Fawcett (née MacDonald). They had one son, Alistair. Sir Lionel Lamb died on 27 July 1992. Appointments: Vice-Consul in China, 1925; Vice-Consul in China, First Grade, 1934; Consul in China, Second Grade, 1935; Consul in China, 1938; Minister (Foreign Service Officer Grade V), 1947; Officer of the Fourth Grade of the Foreign Service, 1948; Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at Berne, 1953.
Born in Loftus, Cleveland, 1884; her family were Primitive Methodists; the family lived at Horwich, Lancashire, 1886-1889; subsequently brought up in Middlesbrough; worked in Scarborough as a children's nurse; a clerk at Stockton Forge, Stockton-on-Tees; trained as a nurse at York County Hospital, 1913; served in military hospitals during World War One (1914-1918); awarded the Royal Red Cross medal; worked at the Welsh Hospital, Netley, Southampton; accepted by the the Primitive Methodist Missionary Society (PMMS, succeeded after 1932 by the Methodist Missionary Society), 1919; trained at Kingsmead Missionary Training College, 1920; a pioneering nurse in eastern Nigeria, 1921-1944; first matron at the Methodist Hospital, Ama Achara; temporary service in South Africa to establish a training hospital in Thaba Nchu, South Africa, 1946-1949; returned to Middlesborough; unmarried; died, 1978. For further information see her nephew Frank Godfrey's biography, Emily: the Relentless Nurse (Teamprint, Loughborough [1999]).
John Comyn Higgins was born on 21 May 1882. He was educated at Bradfield, and Brasenose College, Oxford. He entered the Indian Civil Service in 1905. From 1907-1908 he was Assistant Magistrate and Collector, Bakarganj, Bengal. He became Sub-Divisional Officer, firstly in Jahat, Assam, 1908-1909 and then at Madaripur, Bengal, 1909-1910. From 1910-1917 Higgins was Vice-President and then President of the Manipur State Darbar. He became a Political Agent for the Manipur State (1917-1933) and worked as a political officer on the Kuki Punitive Operation, 1917-1919. From 1920-1923 he was Deputy Commissioner for Nowgong, Assam, and in 1934 became Commissioner for the Assam valley. In 1939 he was a Member of the Assam Revenue Tribunal. He retired in 1942 from the Civil Service and took a Commission with the Indian Engineers. He resigned from the Commission in September 1942. From 1942-1944 he was a Civil Liaison Officer with the Army and subsequently joined the Assam Public Service Commission, 1944-1945. He died on 8 December 1952.
Born in Worcester, England, 1856; educated at King's School, Worcester; won a scholarship to Hertford College, Oxford; 3rd class in classical honour moderations, 1876; enrolled in the Medical Faculty, Edinburgh University, 1879-1880; did not complete his medical education; became a deacon, 1880; served the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in East Africa, 1880-1884; began to learn Swahili soon after his arrival and became acquainted with eminent Swahili scholars there; collected Swahili manuscripts, both poetry and prose; returned to East Africa as CMS missionary, 1885-1889; ordained priest, 1885; travelled extensively among the Giryama (north of Mombasa) and studied Giryama (a Bantu language closely related to Swahili); married Catherine Tesseyman (d 1959) in Hull, 1892; served again in East Africa, 1892-1896; returned to England, 1896; posted to Cairo, 1898-1900; sent to Khartoum as a chaplain, but returned on medical grounds a few months later, 1903; ended his connection with the CMS, 1904; subsequently held a succession of clerical appointments, the last at Halton Holgate, Lincolnshire; retained his interest in Swahili, examining for the War Office and translating for the Salvation Army; died at Bath, 1927. Publications include: African Aphorisms; or, Saws from Swahili-land (1891); Giryama Vocabulary and Collections (1891); The Groundwork of the Swahili Language (1898); contributed to Mrs F Burt's Swahili Grammar and Vocabulary (1910); contributed to C H Stigand's A Grammar of Dialectic Changes in the Kiswahili Language (1915); Ukumbosho wa Uongozi (Memorandum of Guidance for East African Field Officers) [1925]; translations of the Bible into Swahili and Giryama, published 1889-1909.
The British in India Oral Archive Project, under the British in India Oral Archive Committee at the School of Oriental and African Studies, continued the work of recording the experiences of inhabitants of India begun for the BBC Radio 4 series 'Plain Tales from the Raj' (1974). The bulk of the interviews were carried out in 1975-1976, with a few additional interviews in 1984 and 1987.
Whereas the Presbyterian Church of England Foreign Missions Committee was established in 1843, and was sending missionaries and their wives out to China from 1847, it was not until 1878 that the first single woman missionary was appointed to the mission field.
Whereas the wives of missionaries had played a vital role in education and mission work amongst women and girls, the recognition that full-time women missionaries were required to dedicate themselves to educational work, supervising schools and training teachers, led to the establishment of the Women's Missionary Association (WMA). A Synod resolution of 1877 stated 'They are glad that the efforts are being made on behalf of the females of the East, and would welcome the formation of special Associations on the part of the ladies of the Church for the encouragement of this work'.
Miss Catherine Maria Ricketts, a financially independent young woman, was appointed as the first single woman missionary, to Swatow, China. Her appointment in 1878 led to the Women's Missionary Association of the Presbyterian Church of England taking shape, and it was formally founded in December of the same year. Miss Ricketts was quickly followed by the first WMA missionary, Miss E Murray, who was appointed to Formosa in 1880.
The first President of the WMA was Mrs Hugh Matheson, the wife of the Convenor of the Foreign Missions Committee. Branches were quickly formed in many of the London Presbyterian Churches, and in May 1879, the first issue of the WMA periodical Our sisters in other lands: a record of mission work among women was published. Forty two branches of the Women's Missionary Association had been established by 1880. In terms of its home administration, the WMA functioned as an independent unit within the overall framework of the Presbyterian Church of England until 1925, when a union between the Foreign Missions Committee and the Women's Missionary Association was ratified. WMA became part of the FMC and women were given equal representation with men on the FMC Executive. By 1932 a Joint Advisory Committee had been set up by the FMC to deal with matters relating to the mission field, leaving the WMA its home organization, its fundraising function and the training of its candidates.
In terms of the mission field, the women who worked for the WMA concentrated on evangelical work and teaching, primarily if not exclusively among women and girls. Many schools were set up by WMA missionaries, and both nurses and female doctors were also sent out to work in local clinics and hospitals. Staff also undertook the training and supervision of local teachers and worked closely with local people.
The Women's Missionary Association was based in the same areas at the Presbyterian Church of England Foreign Missions Committee. They worked in Swatow (Lingtung) in Southern China, with stations at Wukingfu and Hakka; in Amoy (South Fukien) at Amoy, Chuanchow, Po-sun, and Yungchun; and in Formosa (Taiwan). They also worked in Singapore and Malaysia, and Rajshahi on East Bengal, India (later Bangladesh), with branch stations at Naogaon.
Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf was born on 22 June 1909 in Vienna, Austria. In 1927 he entered the Theresianische Akademie of the University of Vienna, where he studied anthropology and archaeology. Fürer-Haimendorf received his Dr Phil in 1931, based on a doctoral thesis comparing the social organisation of the hill tribes of Assam and north-west Burma. From 1931 until 1934 he worked as an Assistant Lecturer at Vienna University.
The opportunity for fieldwork came when Fürer-Haimendorf was awarded the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship for 1935-1937. In 1935, he undertook a period of post-doctoral study at the London School of Economics, where he attended seminars held by Bronislaw Malinowski, and met many future British anthropologists such as Raymond Firth, Meyer Fortes and Audrey Richards. In 1936, Fürer-Haimendorf left London to work among the Nagas of Assam along the north-eastern frontier of India. In this work, Fürer-Haimendorf was greatly assisted by the anthropologist J P Mills, who was then Deputy Commissioner of the Naga Hills District. He returned to Austria in 1937 after thirteen months of fieldwork.
Fürer-Haimendorf was en route to the Naga Hills for a second period of research when the Second World War broke out. Being in possession of a German passport, he was arrested and interned as an enemy alien (although his internment was carried out with great courtesy, due to his excellent connections in the British colonial administration). He was subsequently confined to Hyderabad State, under the jurisdiction of the Nizam, for the duration of the War. During this time he was able to undertake important fieldwork amongst the tribal groups of Hyderabad, including the Chenchus, Reddis and Raj Gonds. From 1944 to 1945 he was appointed Special Officer and Assistant Political Officer to the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), and was permitted to carry out fieldwork amongst the Apa-Tanis of the Arunachal Pradesh area of Assam. From 1945 to 1949, Fürer-Haimendorf was appointed to the position of Adviser for Tribes and Backward Classes to the Nizam's Government, to deal with the issue of land reform in Hyderabad. In the course of this work, he set up various educational and other schemes for tribal peoples, with the aim of preserving and safeguarding indigenous cultures and languages. He also accepted a teaching appointment as Professor of Anthropology at Osmania University, Hyderabad.
Between 1976 and 1980, Fürer-Haimendorf undertook a series of investigations on the changes that had occurred among the tribal populations he had originally studied in the 1940s (as he termed it, a 're-study'). The main focus of this work was Andhra Pradesh, and the Gonds of the Adilabad District.
In 1949, he accepted a lectureship at the School of Oriental Studies in London. Shortly after his initial appointment he was made Reader, and then Chair of Asian Anthropology in 1951. He was founding Head of the Department of Cultural Anthropology (later Anthropology and Sociology) from 1950 until 1975. He was appointed as Acting Director for the academic session 1969-1970. By the time of his retirement from SOAS in 1976, Fürer-Haimendorf had built up the largest department of anthropology in the country.
In 1953 the Kingdom of Nepal was officially opened to outsiders, and Fürer-Haimendorf became the first foreign anthropologist to be allowed to work in Nepal. He was initially drawn to study the Sherpas of Eastern Nepal. Until the mid-1960s, he concentrated his fieldwork almost exclusively on Nepal, during which time he walked the length and breadth of the country, often in the company of Dor Bahadur Bista. He made return visits throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
Fürer-Haimendorf received numerous academic honours including the Sykes and Roy Medals; RAI Rivers Memorial Medal (1949); his appointment as President of the Royal Anthropological Institute (1975-1977); the King Birendra Prize from the Royal Nepal Academy (1976); and the Austrian Order of Merit for Art and Science (1982). He was Munro Lecturer at Edinburgh University (1959) and also gave the Myers, Foerster and Frazer Lectures. He was visiting professor at the Colegio de Mexico (1964-1966).
In 1938, he married Elizabeth Barnardo (Betty), who became his co-worker, organiser of his expeditions, and a notable ethnographer in her own right. She died in 1987. Fürer-Haimendorf died on 11 June 1995, at the age of 85.
For further information, see introduction in Culture and Morality: essays in honour of Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, ed Adrian C Mayer (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1981), pp vii-xvi, and the obituary in The Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol lix (1996).
Fürer-Haimendorf's numerous publications included: The Naked Nagas (1939); The Chenchus (vol 1 of The Aboriginal Tribes of Hyderabad, 1943); The Reddis of the Bison Hills (vol 2, 1945); The Raj Gonds of Adilabad (vol 3, 1948); Himalayan Barbary (1955); The Apa Tanis and their Neighbours (1962); The Sherpas of Nepal (1964); Caste and Kin in Nepal, India and Ceylon (1966); Morals and Merit (1967); The Konyak Nagas (1969); Himalayan Traders (1975); Return to the Naked Nagas (1976); The Gonds of Andhra Pradesh (1979); A Himalayan Tribe, from Cattle to Cash (1980); Asian Highland Societies in Anthropological Perspective (1981); Highlanders of Arunachal Pradesh (1982); Tribes of India: the Struggle for Survival (1982); Himalayan Adventure (1983); The Sherpas Transformed (1984); Tribal Populations and Cultures of the Indian Subcontinent (1985); The Renaissance of Tibetan Civilization (1990). He also edited René de Nebesky-Wojkowitz's Tibetan Religious Dances after the author's sudden death in 1959. He published his autobiography, Life Among Indian Tribes: the Autobiography of an Anthropologist, in 1990.
Frederick Maze was born in Belfast. He was educated at Wesley College, Dublin, and privately. He entered the Chinese Maritime Customs in 1891, at the close of Sir Robert Hart's regime. In 1899 he was made Acting Audit Secretary at the Inspectorate General in Peking and the following year became Acting Commissioner at Ichang. In 1901 he became Deputy Commissioner firstly at Foochow and then from 1902-1904 in Canton. He opened the Custom House at Kongmoon, West River in 1904, and was subsequently Commissioner in Tengyueh (Burma Frontier) 1906-1908, Canton (1911-1915), Tientsin (1915-1920), Hankow (1921-1925) and Shanghai (1925-1929). In 1928 he was appointed by the Chinese Government to be Deputy Inspector-General of Customs, serving as Inspector-General from 1929-1943, a period of great upheaval in Chinese politics. He continued to run the service when the Japanese occupied in 1937 but after Pearl Harbour he was interned. On his release he went to Chungking where a temporary base for the Customs had been established, but after a few months he resigned and returned to England. Other positions included his appointment by the Chinese Government as Advisor to the National Board of Reconstruction in 1928, and his membership of the Loans Sinking Fund from 1932. He was married to Laura Gwendoline. He died on 25 March 1959.
Born in Chalfont-St-Giles, Buckinghamshire, 1904; son of Roland Allen (a missionary in North China with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel until his resignation in 1907, and a radical critic of the Church) and his wife (Mary) Beatrice (née Tarleton); educated at Westminster School; studied classics at St John's College Oxford; travelled to the Sudan to work on the Gezia Cotton Scheme Project for the Sudan Plantations Syndicate as Assistant Inspector of a cotton plantation, 1927; learnt to speak Arabic and developed an interest in Islamic culture and the Islamic world; returned to England and entered the Colonial Service as Superintendent of Schools in Tanganyika (later Tanzania), 1929; married Winifred 'Winkie' Ethel Emma Brooke (d 1991), 1930; became increasingly interested in the Swahili language; gained a diploma in Swahili from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, by distance learning, 1932; Political Officer and then Deputy British Agent in the Western Aden Protectorate, 1947-1952; returned to Tanganyika, 1952; left the Colonial Service, 1958; Secretary of the Inter-Territorial Swahili Language Committee from 1959; a close friend of many East African writers, notably Shabaan Robert; appointed Honorary Research Fellow at University College, Dar-es-Salaam, with a Rockefeller Foundation grant to document Swahili, 1965; collected, edited and published Swahili and Arabic manuscripts; with his wife, made extensive collections on the East African coast in connection with his academic post and in conjunction with the East African Swahili Committee; Director of the Institute of Swahili Research, University of Dar-es-Salaam, 1968-1970; after retirement from the University, with his wife ran the special Swahili language programme at the Danish Volunteer Training Centre in Tengeru, near Arusha, 1970-1973; continued to translate and publish Swahili texts; four children; died, 1979. For further biographical details see Friederike Wilkening, Der Swahilist John Willoughby Tarleton Allen - Biographie, Werk und Bibliotek (Universität zu Koln, 1998). Publications include: Maandiko ya Kizungu yaani kitabu cha kusomea herufi wanazozitumia wazungu, etc (Swahili-Arabic reader) (Longmans & Co, London, 1938, and later editions); Utenzi wa Vita vya Wadachi Kutamalaki Mrima: the German conquest of the Swahili coast (Beauchamp Printing Co, Arusha, 1955); Utenzi wa Kutawafu Nabii: the release of the Prophet (Beauchamp Printing Co, Arusha, 1956); The Swahili and Arabic manuscripts and tapes in the Library of the University College, Dar-es-Salaam: a catalogue (E J Brill, Leiden, 1970); Tendi: six examples of a Swahili classical verse form (Heinemann Educational, Nairobi and London, 1971); The customs of the Swahili people: the Desturi za Waswahili of Mtoro bin Mwinyi Bakari and other Swahili persons (University of California Press, Berkeley and London, 1981); A Poem concerning the death of the prophet Muhammad: Utendi wa kutawafu Nabii, a traditional Swahili epic (Edwin Mellen, Lewiston and Lampeter, 1991).
Arnold Adrian Baké was born in Hilversum in the Netherlands on 19 May 1899. He was educated at the Haarlem Gymnasium and entered the University of Leiden in 1918, where he studied languages including Javanese, Malay, Arabic and Sanskrit. His hope was to enter government service in the Netherland Indies. Economic pressures on the government meant that this was not possible and instead, Baké considered becoming a professional singer. In 1923 he went to the University of Utrecht to work on Sanskrit treatises on the theory of music. This research became the basis of his doctorate gained in 1930. He also met Rabindranath Tagore for the first time. In 1925 Baké married Cornelia Timmers and for the next four years they lived in Santiniketan where Baké continued his studies and came into contact with many Indian musicians and scholars, especially through Rabindranath Tagore.
In 1931 he went to India under the auspices of the Kern Institute at Leiden, during which time he began to record material including music from Nepal. He returned to Europe in 1934, and embarked on a lecture tour of the United States. In 1937 he became a Senior Research fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford. During the War he remained in India working as Music Adviser to All-India Radio, returning to England in 1946. He became a lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies in Sanskrit and Indian Music in 1948 and was appointed Reader in Sanskrit in 1949. In this position he was not only responsible for encouraging research into Indian music but also into other non-European languages.
He was a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, the International Folk Music Council, the International Society for Folk Narrative Research and the Council of the Folk-Lore Society and an original member of the Committee for Ethnomusicology of the Royal Anthropological Institute. In 1958 he was involved in a street accident in Leiden, which led to recurring bouts of ill health. He died on 8 October 1963.
Ifor Ball Powell was born on 12 September 1902, at Llanfihangel Talyllyn, Brecon. He was a student at Aberystwyth in the early 1920s, where he came under the influence of C. K. Webster and Sidney Herbert in the then newly founded department of International Politics. A Rockefeller fellowship took him to the University of Michigan to study American history. While there he became interested in the Far East. Powell became particularly interested in the Philippines, when he arrived there as a Rockefeller scholar in 1926. He spent three years visiting islands in the central and southern Philippines, collecting a vast amount of information and material on the government, economy and history of the islands. He was particularly interested in the history of the British in the Philippines and collected material on British firms and society. After his return to Britain, and for the rest of his life, Ifor Powell continued his interest in and links with the Philippines, writing to many Filipino friends and colleagues and maintaining an extensive collection of press cuttings.
During the 1930s, Ifor Powell taught history at Barry County Grammar School for Boys. In 1940 he took up wartime duties as a temporary civil servant in the Ministry of Labour. He also visited the United States as a representative of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. In 1945 he was appointed to the Department of History, University College, Cardiff, to teach modern European history. In this position he introduced courses on the expansion of Europe, Far Eastern and American history. From 1949 his teaching was entirely in these fields. Cardiff was thus among one of the first history departments in the UK to widen its syllabus to accommodate new areas of interest created by the Second World War.
He married Anne Nora Lewis (d. 9 March 1983) on 18 August 1931. There were no children. Ifor Ball Powell died on 11 December 1986, at Barry, Glamorgan.
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.
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.
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).
Born Sharow, Yorkshire, 1874; educated at St John's College, York and Royal College of Science (later Imperial College); teacher ( Assistant Master), Haltwhistle, Northumberland, 1895-1897; Ipswich, 1897-1918; Demonstrator and Assistant Lecturer in Geology, Imperial College, 1918-1939; Glaciologist to the Oxford University expedition to Spitsbergen, Norway, 1921; awarded the Murcheson Fund by the Geological Society, 1928; Foulerton Award of the Geologists' Association, 1950; died, 1956.
Publications: include: Studies in Glacial Tectonics edited by A K Wells (Edward Stanford, London, 1927).
The History of Science and Technology Department was established in 1963. In 1980, the department was amalgamated with Associated Studies to form the Department of Humanities. In 1990 Science and Technology Studies separated from the Humanities Department, which became the Humanities Programme. The London Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology was established in 1987, in collaboration with University College London, Imperial College, Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine and the Science Museum.
The Department of Social and Economic Studies was established in 1978, from the Industrial Sociology Unit and a new Economics unit. The Industrial Sociology Unit was established as an independent unit in 1969, previously being part of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. In 1987, the Department of Social and Economic Studies merged with the Department of Management Science to form the Management School of Imperial College.
Joan Woodward was Professor of Industrial Sociology from 1969-1971.
Economic Policy Studies was established in 1974, as a research programme in the Department of Electrical Engineering.
The Robotics and Automated Systems Centre was established in 1983, as was the Centre for Composite Materials.
The Science of Materials covered research carried out in various departments. In 1972, Materials Science was established as an undergraduate course centred in the Department of Metallurgy (later the Department of Materials).
The Imperial College Centre for Environmental Technology (ICCET) was founded in 1977, the first of the interdisciplinary centres within Imperial College crossing traditional boundaries between departments. The Centre became part of the T H Huxley School of Environment, Earth Sciences and Engineering in 1998, which also amalgamated the Departments of Earth Resources Engineering and Geology. The Centre for Remote Sensing was established as part of the Centre for Environmental Technology.
The Department of Physics has its origins in the teaching of Mechanical Science at the Government School of Mines and Science (later the Royal School of Mines) which opened in 1851. In 1853 Applied Mechanics and Experimental Physics were taught at the School. After 1872 Physics, Chemistry and Natural History were transferred to South Kensington.
Astronomy was taught from 1882, with the first Professor of Astronomical Physics being appointed in 1887. In 1911 a Department and Committee for Technical Optics was established, which in 1918 separated from the Department of Physics. By 1926, the department had become a postgraduate section of the Department of Physics, and later became the Applied Optics Section.
The Department of Zoology has its origins in Natural History lectures at the Government School of Mines and Science Applied to the Arts (later the Royal School of Mines), established in 1851. The Department was known as Zoology and Applied Entomology from 1934. The Division of Life Sciences was fomed from the Departments of Botany, Zoology and Biochemistry in 1974. In 1981 the Department of Zoology and Applied Entomology was merged with the Department of Botany and Plant Technology to form the Department of Pure and Applied Biology, with the transfer of Microbiology from the Department of Biochemistry. The Department continued to form part of the Division of Life Sciences along with the Department of Biochemistry.