The Devonshire Declaration: The Myth of Missionary Intervention

Abstract

It has long been accepted that the Devonshire Declaration of 1923 represented a clever compromise by which the British government was able to extricate itself from a longstanding controversy surrounding Indian claims for equality with European settlers in Kenya through a statement that African interests were to be paramount in that colony. There can be no denying that the doctrine of African paramountcy proved an effective solution to the Colonial Office dilemma caused by attempting to balance the conflicting claims of the Kenya Indians and settlers. Yet another widely-stated view, that the doctrine of African paramountcy and other specific details included in the declaration were provided to the Colonial Office by British missionary and church officials, specifically J. H. Oldham and Randall Davidson, the Archbishop of Canterbury is, quite simply, a myth. The Colonial Office had no need for Oldham and Davidson to devise a settlement for it; officials there had decided the main principles that they would use in making a policy statement long before Oldham entered the Indian question in May 1923. What the Colonial Office officials actually got from the missionary leader, in addition to useful phraseology, was the vital support they needed to sell the policy announced in the White Paper to influential public opinion in both Britain and India. This was a most significant achievement, and it is time to recognize Oldham's contribution for what it was rather than perpetuate an interpretation that has no basis in fact.