Frederick Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard

Frederick Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard

Frederick John Dealtry Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard GCMG , CB , DSO , PC (born January 22, 1858 in Madras , British India , † April 11, 1945 in Abinger , England ) was a British soldier, explorer and colonial administrator. With the theory of the so-called indirect rule he developed the central theory of British colonial rule of the 20th century.

Life

Lugard was born to the Reverend FG Lugard at Fort St. George in Madras and grew up in Worcester , England . He attended the Royal Military College at Sandhurst and entered the army in 1878.

He was involved in the Second Afghan-Afghan War in 1879/1880 . In the years 1884/1885 he fought during the Mahdi uprising in Sudan and in 1886/1887 in Burma (now Myanmar). In May 1888 he led an expedition of British settlers in Nyasaland against Arab slave traders on Lake Nyasa .

In 1889 he was hired by the Imperial British East Africa Company and explored the Sabaki River and the surrounding areas and worked out a program to free the slaves of the East African region. In 1890 he was sent to Buganda , where he was responsible for military affairs as a colonial official. He also founded the fort around which Kampala , today's capital of Uganda, was later built . His most important act, however, was to make an agreement with the Omukama (King) Kasagama of Toro to protect against attacks from Bunyoro and thus bind Toro to the British Empire. This led to the establishment of further fortifications, including Fort Portal , and ultimately to the establishment of the Uganda Protectorate .

In 1892 he returned to the United Kingdom. In 1897 he went to Nigeria , where he was High Commissioner of the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria from 1900 to 1906 . From 1907 to 1912, as Governor of Hong Kong, he was instrumental in founding the University of Hong Kong (1911). In 1912 he returned to Nigeria and became governor of the two Nigerian protectorates , which were united in 1914 and of which he was governor-general until 1919.

In 1902 Lugard married Flora Shaw , five years his senior , the influential foreign correspondent for the London Times . The two had no children. It was established in 1928 with the title Baron Lugard , of Abinger in the County of Surrey , in the hereditary nobility applicable; the title expired on his death as he had no male descendants.

Theorists of the indirect rule

In his book The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa published in 1922, he developed a theory of the so-called indirect rule . The work became the handbook of the British colonial officials throughout the Empire.

Lugard as namesake

The following were named after Frederick Lugard:

• the Lugard Road on Victoria Peak in Hong Kong
• the Lugard Tower (building of the Faculty of Education of the University of Hong Kong)
• the Lugard Hall (dormitory in the University of Hong Kong)
• Lugard Avenue in Ikoyi , Lagos , Nigeria
• Lugard Avenue Entebbe , Uganda
• the Lugard House of the Rossall School in Fleetwood
• several school dormitories, guest houses etc. in East and West Africa ("Lugard House")
• the fictional Lord Lugard's College in Chinua Achebes novel Anthills of the Savannah

literature

• Frederick D. Lord Lugard: The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa . 5th edition. Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., London 1965.
• Margery Perham: Lugard. Volume 1: The Years of Adventure 1858-1898 . Collins, London 1956.
• Margery Perham: Lugard. Volume 2: The Years of Authority 1898-1945 . Collins, London 1960.
• Margery Perham (Ed.): The Diaries of Lord Lugard . Faber & Faber, London 1959 (3 volumes).
• Dorothy Middleton: Lugard in Africa . Robert Hale, London 1959.

Web links

• Newspaper article about Frederick Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

predecessor	Office	successor
Matthew Nathan	Governor of Hong Kong 1907–1912	Francis Henry May
Office newly created	Governor of Nigeria 1914-1919	Hugh Charles Clifford