Barely five years ago I was bemoaning in print the poverty of biographical studies
of British Colonial governors, instancing a dozen proconsular giants whose lives I
hoped would be written and read about. Even if nobody read my lament, the Colonial Service fairy-godmother has somehow or other waved her magic wand (or smartly
rapped authors and academics over the knuckles with her rod), for within the past
couple of years biographies of no less than half my named 'missing governors have
appeared in thesis or print. Two names on the wanted list, if the term is not
misunderstood, feature in this review.
Sir Charles Arden-Clarke was one of the new-look governors whom the Colonial
Office deliberately advanced and appointed in place of the Old Guard soon after the
promulgation of the Creech Jones despatch on local government and the Cohen C.O.
blueprint for accelerated decolonization in 1947. Others included Macpherson in
Nigeria, Twining in Tanganyika, and Dorman in Sierra Leone, all of them a Service
generation' younger in their outlook than their able but significantly older predecessors,
like Richards, Burns, Battershill and Mitchell. Arden-Clarke, who had
served a wide colonial apprenticeship in Nigeria, Basutoland and Sarawak, arrived in
Accra in August 1949, with the crisis of the aftermath of the 1948 riots before his eyes
and Creech Jones' no less crisis briefing in his ears: "I want you to go to the Gold
Coast... We are in danger of losing it" . It is to Arden-Clarke's credit that he did not
'lose' the old Gold Coast, but instead won the new Ghana to the Commonwealth by
dint of his talent, toughness and integrity in helping a democratically elected government
towards an orderly transfer of power. The Ghana experience became the
British pattern, in West, East and Central Africa. Mr. Rooney deserves congratulations
on the excellent use he has made of the extensive family letters in writing this
important biography.
If Arden-Clarke was the very model of a modern governor-general. Sir Hugh
Clifford was a classic example of the older ruling caste of imperial proconsul. Few
other Colonial Service officers have been governor of four first-class territories (Gold
Coast, Nigeria, Ceylon, Malaya) and at the same time made an equally high reputation
as an author - a score of books and at least another dozen short stories. As Gailey
remarks, why nobody has written a life of Clifford before is something of a mystery;
for him, his own animus against Lugard was clearly a factor in turning to Clifford.
Like Rooney, Gailey has been fortunate in having been given access to the Clifford
family papers, and a good job he has done on them, too. While this cannot yet be said
to be the definitive life (another biography, even stronger on Clifford's Malayan days,
is already nearing completion), as a study of one of Britain's greatest colonial
governors of the 20th century it is to be warmly welcomed. Not often is it given to a
scholar to publish two studies in one year, but Professor Gailey has achieved this, first
with Lugard and now Clifford. His hard work is our good fortune.
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