Tennis at African Club at Calabar

This photograph helps demonstrate how the colour bar was never as strict in West Africa as it could be in other colonies around the Empire. Perhaps the relative lack of Europeans meant that some form of social interaction with the local people was almost inevitable, but the truth is that Nigerian colonial servants rarely lived up to any colonial stereotype. This particular photograph shows the African Club at Calabar giving a Tennis Display before the Governor on March 18th 1936.

Europeans seated left to right
Mrs Shute, His Excellency Sir Bernard Bourdillon, Lady Bourdillon, Mr Shute, Mrs Chubb
Standing: J.W. Hartley, L.J. Chubb (played), W.E. Glover (played)
Sitting in front: S. Morgan (played), and H.J.M. Harding (played)
Africans who played: Dove-Edwin, O'Mailey, Shorowurin, Nijong