Christopher Fyfe

Christopher Fyfe (9 November, 1920 - 26 August, 2008) was a Scottish historian most noted for his work on Sierra Leone.

Christopher was born in England to a family of Scottish ancestry. His father moved to Ontario where he became principal of Queen's University. The family subsequently moved to Aberdeen, where his father played a similar role at Aberdeen University.

Christopher attended Oxford University, but his studies were interrupted by a spell in the Army as a gunner. After graduating he became a school teacher in Düsseldorf

However in 1950 he was invited by his brother-in-law to organise the Sierra Leonean archives. After two years as the government archivist he moved to London, then Bristol and Belfast and spent ten years working on his seminal History of Sierra Leone (1962). He modelled his 852-page text on Ulysses writing it as a single block of text. When the publisher demanded chapters, Fyfe merely inserted numbered breaks.

Following the appearance of his book, Fyfe took up a lectureship at the University of Edinburgh in 1962, at newly founded Centre of African Studies. He became a reader in 1964, retaining this position until his retirement in 1991.

He edited the Journal of African History and regularly revised his lectures in light of the latest trends in historical research. He published a further book, on James Africanus Horton, the first African graduate of the University of Edinburgh.

Fyfe produced a shorter history of Sierra Leone which became a school text book in Sierra Leone. He became a mentor to many younger Sierra Leonean researchers some of whom became key figures in the intellectual establishment of Freetown and, later, in exile.

Books

• African Studies since 1945 : A Tribute to Basil Davidson (Proceedings of a Seminar in Honour of Basil Davidson's Sixtieth Birthday held at the Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, under the Chairmanship of George Shepperson by Basil Davidson, Christopher Fyfe, University of Edinburgh, Centre of African Studies Staff, Longman Publishing Group, ISBN 0582642078
• Africanus Horton: West African Scientist and Patriot, Gregg Revivals, ISBN 0751200859
• Africanus Horton, 1835-1883, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195015002
• Anna Maria Falconbridge : Narrative of Two Voyages to the River Sierra Leone During the Years 1791-1792-1793, Liverpool University Press, ISBN 0853236437
• A History of Sierra Leone Gregg Revivals, ISBN 0751200867
• Our Children Free and Happy : Letters from Black Settlers in Africa in the 1760s Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 0748602704
• People of the Cape Verde Islands: Exploitation and Emigration with Antonio Carreira, Hurst & Company, Publishers, Limited, C., ISBN 0905838688
• Rethinking African History University of Edinburgh, Simon A. McGrath, Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, ISBN 0952791714
• A Short History of Sierra Leone Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd, ISBN 0582603587
• Sierra Leone, 1787-1987: Two Centuries of Intellectual Life with Murray Last, Paul Richards, Manchester University Press, ISBN 0719027918

References

• Obituary in The Scotsman

Persondata
Name	Fyfe, Christopher
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1920
Place of birth
Date of death	2008
Place of death