- Harry Johnston
Sir Henry (Harry) Hamilton Johnston,
G.C.M.G. ,K.C.B. (12 June 1858 -31 August 1927 ), was a British explorer,botanist and colonial administrator, one of the key players in the "Scramble for Africa " that occurred at the end of the 19th century.Early Years
Born at
Kennington Park , southLondon , he attendedStockwell grammar school and then at King's College London, followed by four years studyingpainting at theRoyal Academy . In connection with his study he traveled toEurope andNorth Africa , visiting the little-known interior ofTunisia in 1879 and 1880.Exploration in Africa
In 1882 he visited southern
Angola with theEarl of Mayo , and in the following year metHenry Morton Stanley in the Congo, becoming one of the first Europeans after Stanley to see the river above the Stanley Pool. His developing reputation led theRoyal Geographical Society and the British Association to appoint him leader of an 1884 scientific expedition toMount Kilimanjaro . On this expedition he concluded treaties with local chiefs (which were then transferred to theBritish East Africa Company ), in competition with German efforts to do likewise.British colonial service and the Cape to Cairo vision
In October 1886 the British government appointed him vice-consul in
Cameroon and theNiger River delta area, where a protectorate had been declared in 1885, and he became acting consul in 1887, deposing and banishing the local chiefJaja . On leave inEngland in 1888, he met with Lord Salisbury and apparently helped formulate the Cape to Cairo plan to acquire a continuous band of territory down Africa, which he then leaked (with Salisbury's approval) to the "Times" in an anonymous article "by an African Explorer".Nyasaland (British Central Africa Protectorate)
In 1889 Johnston was sent to
Lisbon to negotiate the Portuguese and British spheres of influence in southeastern Africa, then went toMozambique as consul. From there he went toLake Nyasa to resolve the war betweenArab slave-traders and theAfrican Lakes Trading Company . Alarm over the presence of the PortugueseSerpa Pinto triggered theAnglo-Portuguese Crisis , which ended with Johnston having Nyasaland (today'sMalawi ) declared theBritish Central Africa Protectorate , and he was made its first commissioner in 1891.cramble for Katanga
In 1890 acting for
Cecil Rhodes and the British South Africa Company (BSAC), Johnston sentAlfred Sharpe (who would become his successor in Nyasaland) to obtain a treaty withMsiri , King of Garanganze inKatanga . This territory was in the sphere of influence of Belgian King Leopold II'sCongo Free State , and though the Berlin Conference's Principle of Effectivity allowed such a move, it had the potential to precipitate an Anglo-Belgian crisis. Sharpe failed with Msiri, though he obtained treaties withMwata Kazembe covering the eastern side of theLuapula River andLake Mweru , and with other chiefs covering the southern end ofLake Tanganyika . In 1891 Leopold sent theStairs Expedition to Katanga. Johnston dissuaded it from accessing Katanga through Nyasaland, but it went throughGerman East Africa instead, and took Katanga after killing Msiri.North-Eastern Rhodesia and Nyasaland
Johnston realised the strategic importance of Lake Tanganyika to the British, especially since the territory between the lake and the coast had become
German East Africa forming a break of nearly 900 km in the chain of British colonies in the Cape to Cairo dream. However the north end of Lake Tanganyika was only 230 km from British-controlledUganda , and so a British presence at the south end of the lake was a priority.With Belgian, German and Portuguese frontiers to contend with, Johnston ensured that British bomas were established (in addition to those in Nyasaland) east of Luapula-Mweru at
Chiengi and theKalungwishi River , at the south end ofLake Tanganyika atAbercorn , and atFort Jameson betweenMozambique and the Luangwa valley. At these bomas he helped set up and oversee the British South Africa Company's administration in the territory which becameNorth-Eastern Rhodesia (the north-eastern half of today'sZambia ). Although he missed out in Katanga, altogether he helped to consolidate an area of nearly half a million square kilometres lying between the lowerLuangwa River valley and lakes Nyasa, Tanganyika, and Mweru into theBritish Empire .Later years
In 1896 in recognition of this achievement he was made a knight (KCB), but afflicted by tropical fevers, transferred to
Tunis asconsul-general . In the same year, he had married the Hon. Winifred Mary Irby, daughter of Florance George Henry Irby, fifth Baron Boston.In 1899 Sir Harry was sent to
Uganda as special commissioner to end an ongoing war. He improved the colonial administration, and in 1900 concluded theBuganda Agreement dividing the land between the UK and the chiefs.In 1902 his wife gave birth prematurely to twin boys, but neither survived more than a few hours, and they had no more children. His sister, Mabel Johnston, married Arnold Dolmetsch, early instrument maker and member of the
Bloomsbury set, in 1903.In 1903 and in 1906 he stood for parliament, but was unsuccessful on both occasions. In 1906, the Johnstons moved to the hamlet of Poling, near
Arundel in West Sussex, where Harry Johnston largely concentrated on his literary endeavours. He took to writingnovel s, which were frequently short-lived, while his accounts of his own voyages through central Africa were rather more enduring. Some have put forward the unlikely theory that he was the principal model for 'The Man who loved Dickens' in the novelA Handful of Dust byEvelyn Waugh ." - designed in 1925, but not released until 1929 - while the lower-case typeface used for the Latin quote below is not presently recognised.
Harry Johnston was the very model of the multi-talented African explorer; he exhibited paintings, collected
flora andfauna (he was instrumental in bringing theokapi to the attention of science), climbed mountains, wrote books, signed treaties, and ruled colonial governments. Like his fellow imperialists he believed in British and European superiority over Africans, though he tended towards paternalistic governance rather than the use of brute force. These attitudes, which seem patronising today, were outlined in his book "The Backward Peoples and Our Relations with Them" (1920), but included his view that colonial rulers should try to understand the culture of the subjugated peoples. Consequently he was considered (by white settlers) as being unusually favourable towards the native peoples (for instance his administration was one of the first in British African colonies to train and employ Africans in the colonial service as clerks and skilled staff), and he had eventually fallen out withCecil Rhodes as a result.Fact|date=October 2007The falls at
Mambidima on the Luapula River were named "Johnston Falls" by the British in his honour.Books
* "The River Congo" (1884)
* "The Kilema-Njaro Expedition" (1886)
* "British Central Africa" (1897)
* "The Colonization of Africa" (1899)
* "The Uganda Protectorate" (1902)
* "The Nile Quest: The Story of Exploration" (1903)
* "Liberia" (1906)
* "George Grenfell and the Congo" (1908)
* "A Comparative Study of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu Languages" (1919, 1922)
* "The Gay-Dombeys" (1919) - a sequel toDombey and Son byCharles Dickens
* "Mrs. Warren's Daughter" -- a sequel toMrs. Warren's Profession byGeorge Bernard Shaw
*"The Backward Peoples and Our Relations with Them" (1920)
* "The Story of my Life" (1923) - autobiography
* "The Veneerings" - a sequel toOur Mutual Friend byCharles Dickens References
*
Thomas Pakenham , "The Scramble for Africa "External links
*
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