Julius Lewin, Lecturer in Native Law at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Edward Mayow Hastings Lloyd: Born 1889; educated at Rugby School and Corpus Christi College Oxford; joined Inland Revenue, 1913; War Office Contracts Department, 1914-1917; Ministry of Food, 1917-1919; Economic and Financial Section of the League of Nations Secretariat, 1919-1921; Assistant Secretary, Empire Marketing Board, 1926-1933; Secretary, Market Supply Committee, 1933-1936; Assistant Director, Food (Defence Plans) Dept, 1936-1939; Principal Asst Secretary, Ministry of Food, 1939-1942; Economic Adviser to Minister of State, Middle East, 1942-1944; UNRRA Economic and Financial Adviser for the Balkans, 1945; CMG 1945; UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, 1946-1947; Under-Secretary, Min. of Food, 1947-1953; CB 1952; died 1968.
Leonard T Burgess was a member of the Irrigation Department, Ceylon. No other biographical details are available.
Anthony McAdam was a Lecturer in the Department of Political Sciences, University College, Rhodesia in the 1960s and early 1970s. He later taught at Stirling University.
Guy Mainwaring, Senior Superintendent of Polce, North Western Province, Ceylon, 1931.
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born at Qunu, near Umtata on 18 July 1918. His father, Henry Mgadla Mandela, was chief councillor to Thembuland's acting paramount chief David Dalindyebo. When his father died, Mandela became the chief's ward to be groomed to assume high office. However, influenced by the cases that came before the Chief's court, he determined to become a lawyer. After receiving a primary education at a local mission school, Mandela matriculated at Healdtown Methodist Boarding School and then started a BA degree at Fort Hare. As a Student Representative Council member he participated in a student strike and was expelled, along with Oliver Tambo, in 1940. He completed his degree by correspondence from Johannesburg, did articles of clerkship and enrolled for an LLB at the University of the Witwatersrand.In 1944 he helped found the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League, whose Programme of Action was adopted by the ANC in 1949.
Mandela was elected national volunteer-in-chief of the 1952 Defiance Campaign. He travelled the country organising resistance to discriminatory legislation. He was given a suspended sentence for his part in the campaign. Shortly afterwards a banning order confined him to Johannesburg for six months. By 1952 Mandela and Tambo had opened the first black legal firm in the country, and Mandela was both Transvaal president of the ANC and deputy national president. A petition by the Transvaal Law Society to strike Mandela off the roll of attorneys was refused by the Supreme Court.In the 1950s after being forced through constant bannings to resign officially from the ANC, Mandela analysed the Bantustan policy as a political swindle. He predicted mass removals, political persecutions and police terror.
When the ANC was banned after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, he was detained until 1961 when he went underground to lead a campaign for a new national convention. Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the military wing of the ANC, was born the same year. Under his leadership it launched a campaign of sabotage against government and economic installations. In 1962 Mandela left the country for military training in Algeria and to arrange training for other MK members. On his return he was arrested for leaving the country illegally and for incitement to strike. He conducted his own defence. He was convicted and jailed for five years in November 1962. While serving his sentence, he was charged, in the Rivonia trial, with sabotage and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Shortly after his release on Sunday 11 February 1990, Mandela and his delegation agreed to the suspension of armed struggle. He was inaugurated as the first democratically elected State President of South Africa on 10 May 1994. Nelson Mandela retired from public life in June 1999. He currently resides in his birth place - Qunu, Transkei.
Joel Joffe was born in 1932, and educated at Marist Brothers' College, Johannesburg and Witwatersrand University. He became a solicitor in 1956 and a barrister in 1962. He worked as a human rights lawyer, 1958-1965, and acted as Nelson Mandela's instructing solicitor in the Rivonia Treason Trial, 1963-1964. He was Director and Secretary of Abbey Life Assurance, 1965-1970, and Director, Joint Managing Director and Deputy Chairman of Allied Dunbar Life Assurance, 1971-1991. He was appointed Chairman of Oxfam in 1995, and created a life peer as Baron Joffe in 2000.
The Southern Rhodesia African National Congress was founded in 1957 under the leadership of Joshua Nkomo. It was banned by the Government in 1959, and several prominent members were arrested and detained. The detainees were released early in 1961. Their claim for compensation does not appear to have been successful.
On 10 February 1955 the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was incorporated by Royal Charter. In 1956 the College entered into a ' Scheme of Special Relation' with the University of London. An Academic Board of the College negotiated with the University of London the entrance requirements for the admission of students, syllabuses, examination procedures, the award of London degrees and other academic matters.
After the break up of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1963, Zambian and Malawian students were to be catered for by universities in their own countries but it was agreed that the College should continue as 'an independent institution of learning, open to all races, serving not only the higher education requirements of Rhodesia but also contributing to the advancement of knowledge, science and research in Central Africa and within the international community of Universities'.
In 1970 the 'Schemes of Special Relation' were phased out and in September that year the University of Rhodesia was established, to be governed by a Council and a Senate. At the end of 1973, the first students with University of Rhodesia degrees graduated from the Faculties of Arts, Science and Social Studies.
The College now forms part of the University of Zimbabwe.
Tim Matthews was expelled from the College in 1970.
Zachariah Keodirelang Matthews was born in the Cape Colony, South Africa, in 1901, and educated in South Africa, the United States and Britain. In 1936 he joined the staff of Fort Hare University as a lecturer in Anthropology and African Law. In 1945 he became a professor, and in 1954 Acting Principal. During this time he was active in political affairs, he joined the African National Congress (ANC) in 1940, and soon assumed a leading role. In 1952 Mathews was involved in the preparations for a Defiance Campaign. In May 1953 he proposed that a National Convention of all South Africans be held during which a peace manifesto should be drafted. His proposal was generally met with approval by the ANC and several other organisation, and resulted in the Congress of the People of June 1955 during which the Freedom Charter was adopted. This activity led to his arrest in 1956, on a charge of High Treason, he was tried and acquitted. In 1959 he left Fort Hare, in 1960 the ANC was banned, and after the Sharpeville shootings he was detained for 135 days. In 1962 he left South Africa to join the staff of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, travelling widely in Africa on WCC business. He died in 1968 in Washington DC.
Walter Edward Guinness was born in Dublin on 29 March 1880, the 3rd son of the 1st Earl of Iveagh. From Eton he volunteered for service in the South African war, where he was wounded and mentioned in despatches. In 1907 he was elected to Parliament as conservative member for Bury St Edmunds, which he continued to represent until 1931. During World War One Guinness again served with distinction in the Suffolk Yeomanry in Egypt, and at Gallipoli. In 1922 he was appointed Under Secretary for War, the first of several political appointments which culminated in his term of office as Minister of Agriculture, Nov 1925-Jun 1929.
After the Conservative defeat in 1929 he retired from office and was created Baron Moyne of Bury St Edmunds. He was now able to indulge his love of travel and exploration, and he was also frequently called upon to chair commissions of enquiry - the Financial Mission to Kenya, 1932, the Departmental Committee on Housing, 1933, the Royal Commission on the University of Durham, 1934 and the West India Royal Commisson, 1938-1939.
During World War Two he again took political office, becoming Secretary of State for the Colonies and Leader of the House of Lords in 1941. In August 1942 he was appointed Deputy Minister of State in Cairo, and in January 1944 Minister Resident in the Middle East. On 6 November 1944 he was assassinated in Cairo by members of the Stern gang.
The West India Royal Commission was a comprehensive investigation of the social and economic condition of all the British territories in the Caribbean. Led by Lord Moyne, the Commission held public hearings throughout the region, and recommended sweeping reforms in everything from employment practices and social welfare, to radical political change. The full findings of the commission were not published until 1945 but an immediate start was made upon the implementation of less controversial recommendations. The British government decided to make substantial increases in the amount of money available for colonial development of all kinds and set about creating a framework for change.
Josie Palmer (sometimes the African form of the name is used (Mpama) was born in Potchefstroom, South Africa, in 1903. She refers to herself as 'coloured' but married an African, Edwin Mofutsanyane (a leading member of the Communist Party of South Africa and the African National Congress (ANC), and lived in an African area. She became the first black woman to play a significant part in the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) and in the womens' movement in South Africa.
She came to the fore in Potchefstroom in the 1928 campaign against residential permits and joined the Communist Party then. During the late 1920s and 1930s she wrote for 'Umsebenzi', the Journal of the CPSA. In 1943-1945 she was a member of the CPSA's Anti-Pass Campsign and in March 1944 convened the women's Anti-Pass Conference in Johannesburg. At the 1947 International Women's Day Meeting in Johannesburg a resolution was passed to establish a 'non colour bar women's organisation' and the Transvaal All-Women's Union was formed, with Palmer as the secretary. It did not last very long, and although it changed its title in 1949 to become the Union of South African Women, it never became a national movement. However the idea was planted and Palmer later became a founding member of the Federation of South African Women and President of the Transvaal Branch. She was banned in 1955 before the Pretoria women's demonstration, and never became involved in the Anti-Pass Campaigns of those years.
Miles Anthony Pedder was Honorary Secretary of the United Federal Party, Rhodesia from 1955-1962. He left politics following the victory of the Rhodesia Front in the General Election, Dec 1962.
The Institute of Commonwealth Studies was founded in 1949 to promote advanced study of the Commonwealth. The Institute offers opportunities for graduate study, houses several research projects and offers a full conference and seminar programme.
Mary Benson was born on 8 December 1919 in Pretoria, South Africa and was educated there and in Great Britain. Before the Second World War she was a secretary in the High Commission Territories Office of the British High Commission in South Africa. Between 1941-1945 she joined the South African women's army, rising to the rank of Captain and serving as Personal Assistant to various British generals in Egypt and Italy.
After the war she joined UNRRA and then became personal assistant to the film director David Lean. In 1950 she became secretary to Michael Scott and first became involved in the field of race relations. In 1951 she became secretary to Tshekedi Khama, and in 1952, together with Scott and David Astor, she helped to found the Africa Bureau in London. She was its secretary until 1957 and travelled widely on its behalf. In 1957 she became secretary to the Treason Trials Defence Fund in Johannesburg. She became a close friend of Nelson Mandela, and assisted with smuggling him out of South Africa in 1962. In February 1966 she was served with a banning order under the Suppression of Communism Act and she left South Africa for London later that year.
In London she continued to work tirelessly against apartheid, writing to newspapers and corresponding with fellow activists in South Africa. In April 1999 Mandela visited her at her home during his state visit to Britain and later that year an 80th birthday party was staged for her at South Africa House.
Mary Benson died on 20 June 2000.
Among her writings are South Africa: the Struggle for a Birthright, Chief Albert Luthuli, The History of Robben Island, Nelson Mandela: the Man and the Movement, the autobiographical A Far Cry and radio plays on Mandela and the Rivonia trial.
The Pearce Commission was appointed by the British Government in 1972 to ascertain the reaction of black africans to the sanctions against Rhodesia. It carried out a referendum on majority rule, which was supported by Rhodesia Front Government of Ian Smith, but rejected by the African National Congress (ANC) on behalf of the Nationalist Parties.
In 1976 the Parti Québécois led by René Lévesque won the Québec provincial election, promising to hold a referendum on sovereignty-association. The referendum was held in May 1980 and federalists won with 60% of vote. Lévesque adopted a constitutional strategy known as the 'beau risque' based on the idea that a political reconciliation with the rest of Canada was possible.
The Royal Institute of International Affairs, also known as Chatham House, is one of the world's leading institutes for the analysis of international issues. Founded in 1920, the Institute works to stimulate debate and research on political, business, security and other key issues in the international arena. It does this through its research, meetings, conferences and publications as well as through its library and information centre and expert interviews for the media.
Henry T Birch Reynardson: born 24 Feb 1872; joined Army 1913, Commissioned in Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry; served in India, 1913-1914; Mesopotamia, 1914-1915; retired on grounds of ill-health as result of wounds 1927, with the rank of Lt Col; Secretary to Governor-General of Union of South Africa, 1927-1933. High Sheriff of Oxfordshire, 1958. Died 1972.
The Zimbabwe-Rhodesia Constitutional Conference, held at Lancaster House, London, began on 10 September 1979. The delegates included Lord Carrington, the British Foreign Secretary, Bishop Abel Muzorewa, Prime Minister of Rhodesia since the general election in April, and other members of his Government of National Unity including the former premier, Ian Smith, Joshua Nkomo, head of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) and Robert Mugabe, head of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), both representing the Patriotic Front. Although none of the participants began the conference with any real expectations that a solution would be reached, after four months of negotiation a settlement was concluded. On 21 December 1979 the delegates signed an agreement to accept a constitution for a new independent Zimbabwe and to implement a cease-fire in the civil war.
Michael Roberts is a Sri Lankan Australian whose secondary and university education was undertaken in Sri Lanka where he graduated with honours in History at the University of Peradeniya before proceeding to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. Completing his doctorate on British agrarian policies in 19th century Ceylon, he taught at the Department of History, University of Peradeniya from 1966 to 1975. He has been teaching at the Department of Anthropology, University of Adelaide since 1977 and has held a position of Reader since 1984.
T W Roberts joined the Ceylon Civil Service in 1902, having obtained a degree in Greats from Oxford University, and failed to find a job as a school master in the UK 'probably because of a colour bar in the teaching ranks of public schools'. He was initally appointed office assistant at Matara, and was later posted to Kurunegala and Chilaw. He became a Magistrate in 1904 and sat on the bench until 1916.
Edward Roux was born in the northern Transvaal, South Africa, in 1903, the son of an English mother and an Afrikaner father. He grew up in Johannesburg, where his father opened a pharmacy in 1907. Roux's father was a free-thinker and Roux, while still a student, helped found the Young Communists League in 1921. In 1923 he joined the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA). After completing his first degree at the University of the Witwatersrand he was awarded a scholarship to Cambridge University, where he spent the years 1926-1929 completing a PhD and carrying out research on plant physiology. In 1928 he visited Moscow as a South African delegate to the 6th Congress of the Communist International. He returned to South Africa in 1929, and by 1930 was engaged on full-time political work as editor of 'Umsebnzi', the Communist weekly. He remained active until 1935 when he was removed from the party's political bureau for aleged right wing sympathies. He left the CPSA in 1936 and took no direct part in politics for the next 20 years. He returned to his academic career and in 1945 he joined the faculty of the University of the Witwatersrand, where he became professor of botany in 1962. In 1957 he became an active member of the multiracial Liberal Party of South Africa. Although 'named' as a former member of the CPSA in 1950 he was not singled out for persecution by the Nationalist government until the early 1960s. In 1963 he was forced to resign from the Liberal Party under new ruled banning 'named' persons, and in 1964 he was issued a full array of banning orders, prohibiting him from teaching, publishing, attending gatherings, being quoted, or leaving Johannesburg. He died in 1966.
Publications S P Banting - A Political Biography, 1944; Longer than Rope [the first major history of African nationalism in South Africa], 1948, numerous articles and pamphlets. His autobiography Rebel Pity: The Life of Eddie Roux was written with his wife Winifred, and published posthumously in 1970.
The Royal Commonwealth Society was founded in 1868 as the Colonial Society. It was renamed the Royal Colonial Institute in 1870 and the Royal Empire Society in 1928. It adopted its current name in 1958. It is a pan-Commonwealth Non-Governmental Organisation, supported by a world-wide membership, working to inform and educate about the Commonwealth.The RCS Library contains about 300,000 printed items and over 70,000 photographs. At the beginning of the 1990's, it appeared that the Society would be forced to break up and sell the collection. A £3 million appeal launched in 1992, saved the Library for the nation and enabled it to be moved to Cambridge University Library, where it remains on permanent deposit.
The Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, was founded in 1949 to promote advanced study of the Commonwealth.
The Ceylon Observer was first published as the Colombo Observer in 1834, changing its name in 1867. It published several special series including the Pictorial, and the Handbook and Directory of Ceylon.
James McInroy came to Demerara in 1782, and planted or acquired a sugar plantation soon after his arrival. By 1790 he was joined by Samuel Sandbach, Charles Stewart Parker and George Robertson, and the company, McInroy Sandbach & Co. was founded. At first the head office was in Glasgow under the name McInroy Parker & Co., and in 1804 a branch was founded in Liverpool, which later became the company headquaters. In 1813 Philip Tinne was taken into the partnership and the company became known as Sandbach, Tinne & Co in Liverpool, and McInroy Sandbach & Co in Demerara (in 1861 changed to Sandbach Parker & Co). They were importers and exporters, shipping and estate agents, mainly concerned with sugar, coffee, molasses and rum, but also in 'prime Gold Coast Negroes' (J Rodway: 'History of British Guiana', 1893). The families intermarried and the sons and sons-in-law entered the business.
The earliest accounts available at Companies House are for 1948. These show Parkers, a Sandbach and later a Tinne still involved in the company. However they are a part of a larger group Demerara Co. Ltd. In the early 1960s the company experienced its first losses, and several shake ups in the Board of Directors followed. Business continued to go badly, and by 1969 the Company had been taken over by Jessel Securities. Sandbach Industries went into liquidation in 1969, and K R Hunt Ltd and Sandbach Export Ltd were sold off.The company was wound up in 1972, and Jessel Securities itself later went into liquidation.
Melvill Keverne Trelawny Sandys, b 1890; joined Ceylon Civil Service in 1919, after service in World War One; Office Assistant to Government Agent, NW Province, 1922-1925; District Judge, Anuradhapura, 1925; Police Magistrate, Kurunegala, 1926; Acting Agent, Hambantota, 1927; Acting District Judge, Tangalla, 1927; Assistant Government Agent, Uva 1927; Assistant Settlement Officer, 1929; Assistant Government Agent Kaltura Oct-Nov 1931; Mannar Nov 1931-Nov 1933, Trincomalee, Nov 1933-Nov 1935, District Judge, Baddle, 1936, Acting Government Agent, Northern Province, 1937, Chairman, Municipal Council, Kandy, Nov 1937.
The Ceylon Light Infantry Volunteers, were established in 1881 by proclamation of the lieutenant governor. This new volunteer force was commanded by British officers, while the ranks were filled out largely with Burghers, a highly Westernized group that adapted well to the demands of volunteer service. A mounted infantry company was added in 1892, and in 1900 this contingent was called to South Africa to assist the British army in the Boer War.
In 1910 the volunteer corps was redesignated as the Ceylon Defence Force. Although Sri Lankan units were not deployed outside the island in either of the world wars, individual soldiers served in the British and British Indian armies. In World War II, the British crown took direct control of the island's armed forces from the colonial government. During this period, the Ceylon Light Infantry grew from 1 battalion to 5 battalions, while the total number of troops in uniform increased to 12,000. Most of these were engaged in maintenance and transport functions. Their most direct contact with the war came in April 1942 when the Japanese launched an air attack on Colombo.
The first European settlers in Natal were a party of British traders who came from Cape Town in 1824, and were given a concession of land by the Zulus. In 1838 some of the Dutch emigrant farmers who made the Great Trek settled there. Two years leater they proclaimed the Republic of Natalia, which the British Government refused to recognise. They eventually surrended after defeat by the British. In 1845 the colony was proclaimed a dependency of the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1856 it became a separate British colony, with limited self government. In 1907 'responsible government' was granted, and following the referendum in 1909 Natal became one of the four original provinces of the Union of South Africa.
The Parliament of South Africa was established by the Act of Union of 1910. There are two houses: the Senate and the House of Assembly. On the outbreak of World War One the Government of South Africa declared war on Germany and her allies, and invaded German South West Africa. There was an anti-British rebellion in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.
The International Socialist League was founded in 1915, in opposition to World War One and the racist and conservative policies of the all-white South African Labour Party and the craft unions supporting it. It was initially rooted amongst white labour militants, but from the start it attracted black workers. The League argued in its weekly paper, the International, for a "new movement" to found One Big Union that would overcome the "bounds of Craft and race and sex," "recognise no bounds of craft, no exclusions of colour," and destroy capitalism through a "lockout of the capitalist class." From 1917 onwards, the International Socialist League began to organise amongst black and coloured workers. In March 1917, it founded an Indian Workers Industrial Union in Durban; in 1918, it founded a Clothing Workers Industrial Union (later spreading to Johannesburg) and horse drivers' union in the diamond mining town of Kimberly; in Cape Town, a sister organisation, the Industrial Socialist League, founded the Sweet and Jam Workers Industrial Union that same year. The International Workers of Africa was founded in 1917, the new general union's demands were simple, summed up in its slogan- "Sifuna Zonke!" ("We want everything!"). It was the first trade union for African workers ever formed in South Africa.
Roger Southall received a PhD from Birmingham University in 1975. Since then he has worked on East Africa and South Africa, publishing in 1983 South Africa's Transkei: the political economy of an independent Bantustan.
The Southern Rhodesia African National Congress was founded in 1957 under the leadership of Joshua Nkomo. It was banned by the Government in 1959, and several prominent members were arrested and detained. The detainees were released early in 1961. Their claim for compensation does not appear to have been successful.
Stephen George Tallents was born on 20 October 1884, eldest son of George William Tallents, a barrister. He was educated at Harrow School, Balliol College, Oxford and Grenoble. He began his career as a civil servant at the Marine Department of the Board of Trade in 1909 before being transferred to assist Sir William [later Lord] Beveridge and Sir Hubert Llewellyn Smith in establishing labour exchanges. He served in the Irish Guards in 1914-1915, and was badly wounded. Following his recovery he worked first in the Ministry of Munitions, then in the Ministry of Food, where in 1918 he was appointed Principal Assistant Secretary and a member of the Food Council at the time when rations were first being introduced.
In 1919 he was appointed the Chief British Delegate for Relief and Supply of Poland, and then British Commissioner for the Baltic Provinces, where he had some success in helping to restore order. He returned to Britain in 1920 to become Private Secretary to Viscount Fitz-Alan, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, at a critical period in Anglo-Irish history, and was then Imperial Secretary for Northern Ireland, 1922-1926. He was briefly Secretary to the Cabinet Committee dealing with the General Strike.
In 1926 Leopold Amery, Secretary of State for the Colonies, chose Tallents to be Secretary of the Empire Marketing Board (Amery was the first Chairman), apparently because of his reputation for being an imaginative, yet effective, civil servant. The Empire Marketing Board (EMB) was established in May 1926 to develop and market food and goods produced in the Empire and to promote the idea of the Empire. It had three principal activities: support of scientific research, promotion of economic analysis, and publicity. Research took up a significant proportion of the EMB's work and budget; it assisted 126 agricultural and medical research projects during its life. It issued numerous Intelligence Notes, pamphlets and surveys, made links with buyers and produced analyses of markets to help producers. However, it was Tallents' interest in selling the idea of Empire that formed the rest of his career. The EMB organised press and poster campaigns, exhibitions, shopping weeks, Empire shops, lectures and radio talks. Most famous was the EMB film unit led by John Grierson, reputed to be the creator of the documentary film.
Following the demise of the EMB in September 1933 Tallents was appointed Public Relations Officer for the General Post Office (on whose Publicity Committee he had served since 1931). His work there included development of a Post Office film unit under Grierson and brought him the Cup of the Publicity Club of London - then the advertising world's highest honour - in 1935, a rare achievement for a government official. He then moved to the BBC as a Controller (Public Relations, 1935-1940; Overseas Services, 1940-1941). He later served as Public Relations Officer to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, 1943-1946.
In the 1940s Tallents also wrote a history of the EMB, `Empire Experiment', which was never published.
Stephen Tallents was knighted in 1932. He was the President (1947-1949 and 1953) and Fellow of the Institute of Public Relations. Following his retirement from public service he was involved in a company producing architectural models. He died on 11 September 1958.
His publications included The Projection of England, a pamphlet published in 1932 in which he called for a "school of national projection" that would present England to the world, Post Office Publicity (1935) and Man and Boy (1943), an autobiographical work.
The Capricorn Africa Society was founded in Southern Rhodesia by David Stirling in 1949, with objective of democratic and multi-racial development in East and Central Africa.
Wreck is flotsam, jetsam, derelict and lagan found in or on the shores of the sea or any tidal water. It includes any vessel, cargo or equipment. It may be of antique or archaeological value such as gold coins, or a yacht or dinghy abandoned at sea, or items such as drums of chemicals, or crates of foodstuffs. It is a legal requirement that all recovered wreck is reported to the Receiver of Wrecks. The Ceylon Receiver of Wrecks was based at Galle until 1882, when the office was moved to Colombo.
Between 16 and 24 June 1976 there was widespread rioting in the African townships of South Africa, the worst since the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. The disturbances began in Soweto, the immediate cause was the compulsory use of the Afrikaans language as the medium of instruction in Bantu schools. The rioting quickly spead to other townships. The official death toll was put at 176. The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution condemning the South African Government for 'massive violence against and killings of the African people including schoolchilden and students and others opposing racial discrimination'.
In 1959 the South African National Party Government passed the extension of University Education Act which prohibited the admission of any person not classed as 'white' to universities, other than those established specifically for them, without a permit from the Minister of State. This legislation was strenuously opposed by the University of Cape Town and others. Following an inquiry into education, the Government published the Universities Amendment Bill in 1983, which altered the rules in that rather than a permit system, universities were to be prohibited from admitting black students beyond a quota to be stipulated annually by the Minister. Once again there was considerable opposition to the proposed new legislation, and the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Cape Town sent copies of material to contacts in the UK, for use in campaigning against the Bill. The papers in this collection comprise a set of this material
British settlement in the area began in the 1830s, and Cecil Rhodes' British South Africa Company assumed control in the 1890s. Britain took over administration from the Company in 1923 and granted self-government to white colonists. Southern Rhodesia federated in 1953 with Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland with a view to achieving independence as a unified country. The Federation dissolved in 1963, and the three constituent countries pursued separate paths to independence. Britain rejected independence for the white Southern Rhodesia regime in 1964, and the government unilaterally declared independence (UDI) in 1965 as Rhodesia. British colonial rule was briefly reimposed in 1979 in order to achieve a settlement, and independence was granted in 1980 under black majority rule as Zimbabwe.
Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett was born in Brooklyn in 1849, of American parents. He was educated at Torquay and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated with 1st class honours in Law and Modern History in 1872 and was President of the Union, defeating H.H. Asquith in a famous contest. He was an examiner of the Education Department, 1874-80. He was called to the bar in 1877. In the same year he founded the Patriotic Association, which aimed to counter pro-Russian feeling in the country. His obituary in the Times (20 Jan 1902) reported that he was a fine orator and attracted large crowds - for a time his popularity "with provincial audiences" was second only to that of Lord Randolph Churchill - though his style was not so suited to the House of Commons, where he was often regarded as an eccentric figure. He was MP (Con) for Suffolk (Eye) - a seat in the gift of Lord Beaconsfield - from 1880 to 1885, and for Ecclesall Division, Sheffield, from 1885 until his death in 1902. He was Civil Lord of the Admiralty in Lord Salisbury's governments in 1885-86 and 1886-1892 and was knighted in 1892.
Throughout Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett's political career his main theme was Britain's imperial role; he believed that Turkey's security was crucial to the Empire and was well known as a supporter of Turkish interests. Another long-term concern was that Swaziland should become a British, rather than Boer, territory. In 1880 he began to publish a weekly newspaper, England, which lasted until 1898 but was never very successful - its demise led to bankruptcy proceedings that were only settled in 1901. In April-May 1897 he travelled to Greece and Turkey with his son (see below) as a guest of the Sultan; he observed events in the Graeco-Turkish War, and described them in The Battlefields of Thessaly (1897).
Who Was Who 1897-1915 (London, 1935) records that he served in the South African war in 1900, but it was his son who served there in the Bedfordshire Regiment, though Sir Ellis was at one time a Lieutenant in the West Yorkshire Regiment, a militia unit. He did, however, visit South Africa and Swaziland (where he had been negotiating with rulers) in 1900-01, meeting his son by chance in Bloemfontein's main street (A/2/1/71). He died on 18 January 1902.
Publications: Shall England keep India? (W. H. Allen & Co.: London, 1886); Union or Separation ... Also an Analysis of Mr. Gladstone's "Home Rule" Bill (7ed., National Union: London, 1893); British, Natives & Boers in the Transvaal ... The appeal of the Swazi people (McCorquodale & Co.: London, 1894); The Transvaal Crisis. The case for the British-Uitlander-residents in the Transvaal (3ed., Patriotic Association: London, 1896); The Battlefields of Thessaly. With personal experiences in Turkey and Greece, etc. (John Murray: London, 1897).
Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett was the eldest son of Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett (1849-1902). Born in 1881, he was educated at Marlborough College. In 1897, at the age of 17, he accompanied his father to Turkey as the guest of the Sultan and followed the Turkish army in its campaign against the Greeks. At one point the party was arrested by the Greeks as spies. Ashmead-Bartlett had begun studying to become a barrister when he left with his regiment for the South African War in February 1900. At the end of May he was taken ill, sent home and spent 7 months in hospital. By early in 1901 he was in Marseilles and Monte Carlo, supposedly for recuperation (A/3), and in May 1901 he returned to London to stay with his uncle and aunt, the Burdett-Coutts, and continued his legal studies.
It was not until 1904 that he began his career as a war correspondent by covering the siege of the Russian port of Port Arthur by the Japanese, entering the city with the victors. His account, Port Arthur: the siege and capitulation (London 1906) was well received. For the next few years he mixed a full social life in London and the country and in Paris (as described in his diaries) with periods as a war correspondent and writer and a developing political career. As Reuters' special correspondent he accompanied the French army in Morocco (1907-08), the Spanish in Morocco (1909) and the Italians in Tripoli (1911). At home he fought the safe Labour seat of Normanton in Yorkshire for the Conservatives in January 1910 and the Liberal seat of Poplar in December 1910. He was then employed by the Daily Telegraph to be its correspondent in the Balkans and he covered the two Balkan wars of 1912-1913.
At the outbreak of war in 1914 Ashmead-Bartlett returned from Bucharest to volunteer for his old regiment, but was turned down for medical reasons. He was selected by the National Press Association (Lord Burnham, proprietor of the Daily Telegraph, was the chairman) as the London Press representative on the Dardanelles Campaign, which began in March 1915. He was soon critical of the conduct of the campaign by the Allied commander Sir Ian Hamilton and the General Staff. Returning to London in June 1915 (having survived the sinking of the 'Majestic' on 26 May) he discussed the campaign with senior ministers and politicians (Asquith, Balfour, Carson, Bonar Law, Churchill, Kitchener) and presented a memorandum on the subject to the cabinet.
Ashmead-Bartlett returned to the Dardanelles at the end of June, his equipment now including a movie camera which he used to make the only moving pictures of the campaign. Further disastrous landings and assaults in August and, in his view, the continued mismanagement of the campaign led him to make another attempt to influence the government, by sending a letter to the Prime Minister with Australian correspondent Keith Murdoch. Though the letter was seized by the military authorities, Murdoch wrote another version from memory, and this was delivered to Asquith via the Australian PM Fisher. Ashmead-Bartlett was dismissed as a war correspondent in the Dardanelles on 30 September 1915 (he had already unsuccessfully applied to the NPA to be relieved).
Exactly how much effect his interventions had will probably remain unclear, but Ashmead-Bartlett might have been partly responsible for the withdrawal from Gallipoli in 1915 and the subsequent resignation of Churchill. The issue of Ashmead-Bartlett's role in the campaign continued to be raised well after it ended. He was invited to give evidence to the Dardanelles Commission in 1917 and the publication of his books, Ashmead Bartlett's Despatches from the Dardanelles (1916) and The Uncensored Dardanelles (1928), and those of Sir Ian Hamilton and others usually caused a flurry of articles and letters in the press. Even in 1933, after his death, his family were prompted to defend him in the Daily Telegraph following more allegations from Hamilton (E/30). (For an account of his involvement in the Dardanelles campaign and its aftermath, see K. Fewster, 'Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett and the Making of the Anzac Legend' in Journal of Australian Studies No.10, June 1982, pp.17-30)
Ashmead-Bartlett claimed that the War Office persecuted him after his dismissal and in 1916 attempted to prevent him delivering a series of lectures on the Dardanelles campaign in England, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Certainly he was never permitted to accompany British or Dominion troops again, and on his return to Britain he worked for the Daily Telegraph as one of the British Press group attached to the French Army at the headquarters of Marshal Joffre. In 1918 he sought a post as a correspondent with the American Army in France, but was rejected, apparently as a result of War Office objections.
In 1919 Ashmead-Bartlett was again employed by the Daily Telegraph, reporting on events in Central Europe. He spent several months in Austria, Poland, Romania and Hungary, and was horrified by the threat of Bolshevism in the region. In Budapest he became directly involved in political intrigue during the Hungarian revolution, working with an anti-Bolshevik faction and lobbying British ministers on their behalf.
Despite being based in Paris he re-entered British politics and was narrowly defeated by the Labour candidate in North Hammersmith in 1923, but won the seat in 1924. As an MP his main concern was foreign policy. In 1926 he was obliged to resign his seat because of bankruptcy. He returned to work as a special correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, reporting on, inter alia, the civil war in China in 1927, Soviet Russia in 1928, Palestine in 1929, and India in 1930. At the same time he continued to publish books based on his newspaper writings.
He became ill while covering the Spanish Revolution and died at Lisbon on 4 May 1931.
Publications: Port Arthur: the siege and capitulation (W. Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh & London, 1906); The Immortals and the Channel Tunnel. A discussion in Valhalla (W. Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh & London, 1907); Richard Langhorne. The romance of a Socialist (W. Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh & London, 1908); The Passing of the Shereefian Empire (W. Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh & London, 1910); in collaboration with Seabury Ashmead-Bartlett, With the Turks in Thrace (William Heinemann: London, 1913); Ashmead Bartlett's Despatches from the Dardanelles (George Newnes: London, 1916); Some of my Experiences in the Great War (George Newnes: London, 1918); The Tragedy of Central Europe (Thornton Butterworth: London, 1923); The Uncensored Dardanelles (Hutchinson & Co.: London, 1928); The Riddle of Russia (Cassell & Co.: London, 1929).
Sir Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett's younger brother and Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett's uncle was Rt. Hon. William Lehman Ashmead Bartlett Burdett-Coutts (1851-1921). He married Angela, Baroness Burdett-Coutts (1823-1906), and assumed her surname. He was also an MP (Con, Westminster, 1885-1921).
The Committee was set up in December 1961, to advise the Secretary for Technical Co-operation on the training facilities in public administration and related subjects provided in the UK for government servants and other public employees from overseas, and the arrangements for assistance from the UK in building up local facilities in this field; and report on their adequacy for present and forseeable future demand. It met several times over the next year, receiving written and oral evidence from numerous parties, and reported back at the end of 1962.
John Ferguson was born in Tain, Easter Ross in 1842. He was educated at Tain Royal Academy, then trained as a journalist in Inverness and London before going to Ceylon om 1861 to take up a position as Assistant Editor of the Columbo Observer, under his uncle, the proprietor and Editor, Alastair Mackenzie (AM) Ferguson. He was to remain with the paper (renamed the Ceylon Observer) in 1867) for nearly 50 years, initially assisting his uncle, but gradually taking a more senior role, and becoming the proprietor and editor on his uncle's death in 1892.
Ferguson developed an active role in the political, commercial and cultural affairs of Ceylon. He took a particular interest in the development and expansion of the railway system, and became closely involved in the tea, coffee, coconut and other planting trades for which he compiled and published statistics in his annually issued Handbook and Directory of Ceylon. His interest in these trades also led to his founding and publishing the Tropical Agriculturalist, a journal covering planting in all tropical regions, which began in 1881 and continued under his control until 1904, when responsibility for it was assumed by the Agricultural Society. Ferguson was very active in the Cinnamon Gardens Baptist Church (as was his uncle), and lectured on many of his interests. He travelled overseas from Ceylon on several occasions, visiting Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, North America and Britain.
In 1903 Ferguson was awarded the CMG, and in the same year was appointed as a member of the Legislative Council of Ceylon. In this role he continued to support his interests, such as extension of the railway system and supporting trade. He resigned in 1908, and in 1912 returned to Britain for the last time, and he died there in 1913. He was married twice: firstly in 1871 to Charlotte Haddon (died 1903), by whom he had two sons and two daughters; secondly in 1905 to Ella Smith, who survived him.
Alastair Mackenzie (AM) Ferguson, the uncle of John, was born in Wester Ross in 1816. He came to Ceylon in 1837 as one of the staff of JA Stewart Mackenzie, the newly appointed Governor. After holding various posts, he became assistant editor on the Ceylon Observer in 1846, under the then owner, Dr Elliott. In 1859 Dr Elliott sold the newspaper to Ferguson, who was himself joined by his nephew as assistant editor in 1861. From 1879 he took a lesser role in the production of the newspaper, but continued to contribute material, while in 1880-1 he was the Ceylon Commissioner to the Melboune Exhibition. He was awarded the CMG shortly after this event. He made return visits to Britain in the 1860s and 1870s but not thereafter for health reasons; however he continued to make visits abroad to India and Australia. He became a highly respected figure in Ceylon, and like his nephew was very supportive of the planting trades and railway development. He died in 1892.
Hugh Russell Tinker was born in 1921 in Essex, and educated in Taunton School and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He served in the Indian Army 1941-1945, and was then employed in the Indian civil administration until 1946. Thereafter he followed an academic career as a historian, as Lecturer, Reader and Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, 1948-1969; Director of the Institute of Race Relations, 1970-1972; Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 1972-1977; and Professor of Politics, University of Lancaster, 1977-1982, of which he was Emeritus Professor until his death. In addition, he held brief overseas professorships, at Rangoon in 1954-1955, and Cornell, USA, 1959. As an active member of the Liberal Party, Tinker stood as a candidate in general elections, for Barnet in 1964 and 1966, and for Morecambe and Lonsdale in 1979. He was involved in the party's immigration and race relations panel in the early 1970s. He was also Vice-President of the Ex- Services Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Tinker wrote numerous books, mainly on topics reflecting his academic interests: the history and politics of the Indian subcontinent, and Indians overseas. His publications included: The Foundations of Local Self-Government in India, Pakistan and Burma (1954); The Union of Burma: A Study of the First Years of Independence (1957); India and Pakistan: A Political Analysis (1962); Ballot Box and Bayonet: People and Government in Emergent Asian Countries (1964); Reorientations: Studies on Asia in Transition (1965); South Asia: A Short History (1966); Experiment with Freedom: India and Pakistan 1947 (1967); (Ed) Henry Yule: Narrative of the Mission to the Court of Ava in 1855 (1969); A New System of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labour Overseas 1830-1920 (1974); Separate and Unequal: India and the Indians in the British Commonwealth 1920-1950 (1976); The Banyan Tree: Overseas Emigrants from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (1977); Race, Conflict and the International Order: From Empire to United Nations (1977); The Ordeal of Love: CF Andrews and India (1979); A Message from the Falklands: The Life and Gallant Death of David Tinker (1982); (Ed) Burma: The Struggle for Independence (1983-1984); Men who Overturned Empires: Fighters, Dreamers, Schemers (1987); Viceroy: Curzon to Mountbatten (1997). A Message from the Falklands was based on the letters of Tinker's son David, who was killed there while serving as a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Hugh Tinker died in 2000, survived by his wife Elizabeth and their two elder sons.
Hyman M Basner was born in Russia in 1905, and moved to South Africa at an early age. He trained as a lawyer, and his case work brought him into close contact with Africans and their plight. He joined the Communist Party of South Africa, but resigned in 1938. He stood for Senate as a native representative against J H Rheinallt Jones, and served from 1942-1948. In 1943 he co-founded the African Democratic Party. He left South Africa after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, and worked in Ghana from 1962-1966. He died in England in 1977.
The Commonwealth Secretariat was established in June 1965 by a decision of the 1964 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Prior to this date intra-Commonwealth affairs had been administered by British Civil Servants. The Secretariat was designed to assist internal co-operation between member states and was never intended to have executive powers.
Marjorie L Caygill had an extensive career at the British Museum, and is the author of several books on the Museum and its collections.
The British Medical Association was founded, as the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, in Worcester in 1832 by Dr (later Sir) Charles Hastings. There was no regulation of the profession at this time and anyone, whetherqualified or not, could practise as a doctor. The Association lobbied for aregulatory body and this led to the setting up of the General Medical Council in 1858. The Association also campaigned on behalf of doctors providing medical care under the Poor Laws and on other issues.
The Association's membership grew rapidly. In 1853, it extended its membership to London doctors and became the British Medical Association in 1856.
R M G Moneypenny retired as Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, Housing and Social Services in Ceylon on 24 November 1958. No other biographical details are available.
Didymus Noel Edwin Mutasa born 27 July 1935, Rusape, Zimbabwe; educated at Goromonzi Government School, and University of Birmingham; clerk, 1956-1959; established Nayafara Developement Company, 1960; administrative officer, Ministry of Agriculutre, 1960; co-founder Southern Region Federal Services Association, 1960-1963; Co-founder Cold Comfort Society, 1964; arrested 1970, in solitary confinement, Sinoia Prison, 1970-1972; in exile, 1972-1979; founder member Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) Branch, Birmingham, and district Chairman ZANU (UK), 1975; joined ZANU Headquarters, Maputo, 1977; deputy secretary for Finance, Central Committee, ZANU, 1978; elected ZANU-PF MP for Manicaland, 1980, also elected Speaker of the Zimbabwe Parliament, 1980-1990; Senior Minister for Political Affairs, 1990, secretary for Transport and Welfare, Politburo, ZANU-PF since 1984.
The former Kingdom of Benin is situated in SW Nigeria. Ruled by the Oba and by a sophisticated bureaucracy, the African state flourished (14th-17th centuries). Benin sold slaves as well as ivory, pepper, and cloth to Europeans. After a period of decline, it revived in the 19th century with a trade in palm products. The modern Nigerian city of Benin (1987 est. pop. 183,000) served as the capital and was conquered and burned by the British in 1898. Iron work, carved ivory, and bronze busts made in Benin rank with the finest art of Africa.