AFRICA THROUGH WESTERN EYES

Part 1: Original Manuscripts from the Royal Commonwealth Society Library at Cambridge University Library

DETAILED LISTING

REEL 1
Cuthbert Christy: Notebooks and Diaries. Vols 4-22, 1896-1909
(Nigeria/India/Uganda/Congo/Calabar/Benin)
Christy (1863-1932) qualified in medicine at the University of Edinburgh. In the early 1890s he travelled to South America and the West Indies. From 1898-1900 he was senior medical officer to the Second Battalion West African Field Force in northern Nigeria, after which he served for a brief time in India. He was a member of the First Uganda Sleeping Sickness Commission in 1902 and of a medical expedition to Congo in 1903. He travelled in Ceylon, East Africa, Uganda, Southern Nigeria, the Gold Coast and the Cameroons. After official posts in the Congo and the Sudan he served during the First World War in Africa and Mesopotamia. After the War, he explored the Sudan, Nyasaland and Tanganyika, and was a member of the League of Nations Commission enquiring into slavery and forced labour in Libreria. He died as a result of being gored by a buffalo while on a zoological investigation in the Congo. The Royal Commonwealth Society Collections also include over 400 photographs of his travels, some his own, others by professional photographers.

Bibliography
Obituary. Journal of the African Society 31 pp. 339-341, 1932.
Christy, Cuthbert, The African rubber industry and Funtumia elastica ("kickxia"), London: J. Bale, Sons & Danielsson, 1911.
Christy, Cuthbert, Big game and pygmies: experiences of a naturalist in Central African forests in quest of the okapi. London: Macmillan and Co., 1924
Taylor, J.P., Dr Christy and Liberia. Royal Commonwealth Society Library Notes, no. 187, pp. 1-4, January 1973.

Notebooks and Diaries
Vols 1-3: Not included as these do not relate to Africa
Vol 4: Nigeria, 1896-1898
Vols 5-6: Nigeria, 1898-1899
Vol 7: India, 1901
Vol 8: Journey from Lahore to Srinigar, 1901
Vols 9-14: Uganda. Sleeping Sickness Commission, 1902-1903
Vols 15-20: Congo Expedition, 1903-1904
Vol 21: Uganda letter-book, 1905
Vol 22: Calabar & Benin, 1909

REEL 2
Cuthbert Christy: Notebooks and Diaries. Vols 23-33, 1912-1926
(Congo/Nyasaland/Tanganyika/Liberia)
Vols 23-30: Congo Expedition, 1912-1916
Vols 31-33: Expedition to Lake Nyasa and Lake Tanganyika

REEL 3
Cuthbert Christy: Notebooks and Diaries. Vols 34-40, 1927-1930
(Congo/Nyasaland/Tanganyika/Liberia)
Vols 34-38: Expedition to Lake Nyasa and Lake Tanganyika
Vols 39-40: Diaries relating to his work on the International Commission of Enquiry looking into Slavery in Liberia, 1930

REEL 4
Cuthbert Christy: Notebooks and Diaries. Vols 41-44, 1930
Vols 41-44: Diaries relating to his work on the International Commission of Enquiry looking into Slavery in Liberia, 1930

REEL 5
A R H Mann: African Diaries and photographs, 1935
(Egypt/Sudan/Kenya/Uganda/Congo/Cameroons/South Africa)
4 small volumes and 506 photos
Mann presented the diaries and photographs of his 1935 African journey to the Royal Commonwealth Society in 1967. Later attempts to establish biographical details drew a blank and he remains a mysterious figure, of whom no more is known than can be derived from the internal evidence of his diaries.

Charles Stevenson: Commerce with the interior of Africa. 1824.
Charles Stevenson (?-1828) is a somewhat elusive character. He began his military career in the American War of Independence, and by 1803 was a Lieutenant-Colonel. He was authorised to raise a Corps of West Africans to be called the York Rangers, but the instructions were later altered. Early in the following year he was advocating a military expedition against the French in Senegal. Originally an attack was to be made on Timbuktu, but in a later modification, Stevenson was to establish a fort at Bambuk and other moves were to be made to cut the French off from the interior. Mungo Park, meanwhile, was to sail down the Niger and make treaties with the chiefs. The scheme was abandoned after the resignation of Addington's government in April 1804 and the only result was the despatch of Mungo Park's ill-fated last expedition. Stevenson became a Lieutenant-General on 4 June 1814. Nothing is known of the response to the scheme outlined in Stevenson's letter.

Bibliography
Commerce with the interior of Africa, 1824. Royal Commonwealth Society Library Notes, no. 102, June 1965.

REEL 6
Nigel Robars: 5 volumes on the local history, administration etc of Senegambie
It has not been possible to trace any further details concerning Nigel Robars.

Philip Louis Tengely: Thirty Years Ago - Reminiscences of life in West Africa
(Benin/Accra/Sierra Leone)
Philip Louis Tengely (1875-?) entered the Civil Service in British Guiana in 1892 and served in the Land and Audit Departments. In February 1905 he was appointed 2nd Class Supervisor, Customs, in the Gold Coast and transferred to Southern Nigeria as Assistant Auditor, July 1905. He went to Sierra Leone in the same capacity in February 1908 but was invalided in the following year.

Details of his later career are unknown but he presented his volume of reminiscences to the Royal African Society in 1939, on the instigation of Captain M.S. Cockin - "not suitable in its candid present form for publication and I wished to destroy it. However he is most emphatic that I should give it to your Society."

S Forbes White: Account of a journey in French West Africa, c1901
S.Forbes White's account of a journey in French West Africa was presented to the Library in 1948 and he also gave an account of several visits to Siberia 1904-18. He was a member of the Royal Empire Society - as shown by his subscriptions record - but resigned in 1952. No other trace has been found of him. His diary includes comments upon colonial policy.

James Dick: Journal of a visit to East Africa and Uganda, 1912
James Dick (1862-1926) was born at Shotts in Scotland and educated at George Watson School and Edinburgh University. He emigrated to South Africa in his twenties and became manager of Steel Murray & Co., merchants in Durban. In December 1890 he became a Lieutenant in the C (Caledonian) Company of the Natal Royal Rifles (later the Durban Light Infantry). He served in the Boer War and, during the Zulu Rebellion of 1906, when the Natal militia was mobilised, he was seconded to command the newly raised volunteer corps, the Natal Rangers as Lt. Col. The forces were demobilised in July 1906 but were again called out in November 1907, following the murder of the loyal chief Mpumela. Dick died in Edinburgh in 1926.

Bibliography
Martin, A.C. The Durban Light Infantry vol. 1, 1969.

Arthur Hunter: Jackson & Archer Scrapbook, c1889-1890
(East Africa/Uganda)
Hunter was a cousin of Sir Frederick Jackson and uncle of Sir Geoffrey Archer, Governor of Somaliland and later Governor-General of the Sudan.

The scrapbook records the Jackson-George Expedition of 1888-1890, and has much on Uganda, Roosevelt in East Africa and Rider Haggard.

Bibliography
Jackson and Gedge in East Africa: new material. Royal Commonwealth Society Library Notes no. 167, January 1971.

REEL 7
Frederick Grant Banks: 73 letters from Uganda, 1896-1905
Frederick Grant ('Deaf') Banks (1875-1954) served variously as a trader, government official, planter, elephant hunter and game ranger in Uganda. Born in London, but raised in Christchurch, New Zealand, Banks went to Africa in 1896 at the age of 21. His letters provide a unique record of the life of a junior in a commercial firm in Africa at this time. He witnessed or comments upon the Kamasia/Nandi expedition of the Kabaka in 1897; the Sudanese Mutiny of 1897-1899; Macdonald's and Martyn's expeditions, 1897-1899; and the Nandi Rising, 1900. After working with a coastal merchant, Banks moved into coffee planting and then set off on a prospecting trip to the Congo. He later became a noted big game hunter.

George K Baskerville: Uganda: Missionary History, 1876-1927
George K Baskerville served as a missionary in Africa for the Church Missionary Society from 1890 to 1922 and was Archdeacon of Uganda from 1912 to 1922. There is much in his history concerning the exploits of Bruce, Speke, Baker, Grant, Stanley and other missionaries and explorers.

Lt Col Claude G H Sitwel: Uganda Diary, 1895-1899
Lt Col Claude G H Sitwell (1858-1900) was a professional soldier by trade. From 1895 to 1899 he served as a member of the civil government of Uganda.

REEL 8
Arnold Paice: Letters and diaries, 1901-1945. Comprising:
- RCS correspondence, 1963
- Diary: 'From Durban to Naivasha', April 1902
- Scrapbook, 1924-1930
- Letters to his parents, 1901-1915
Arnold Paice (1879-1963) was born in London and volunteered for service in the Boer War. From 1900 to 1902 he stayed on in South Africa and then moved to Kenya, where he lived as a farmer.

REEL 9
Arnold Paice: Letters and diaries, 1901-1945. Comprising:
- Letters to his parents, 1916-1937
- Letters to his sister Muriel, 1904-1945 (South Africa/Kenya)

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