West African Frontier Force Research Articles

Documenting and Digitizing with Dignity: Ethical Considerations and the West African Frontier Force Personnel Records

This article explores considerations arising from the digitization of the personnel records from the West African Frontier Force held at the Sierra Leone Public Archives. These records reflect a knowable and living past and contain sensitive and confidential information including medical and personal details not normally disclosed to the public. Best practice and ethics must be taken into account to protect the privacy of these subjects, but this approach applies beyond these records to all those concerning the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Digital best practice emphasizes the human dignity of what might otherwise be regarded as data alone. We begin by exploring the archive itself as an abstract and then a physical concept, as in many cases archives are the homes of documents which are vital to our research, but these documents may be in precarious condition. By reflecting on the archive as an object, our concern for best practice extends to respecting both the provenance of the primary sources and the people who preserve them. The second topic we explore is a methodological and ethical one: the organization, anonymization, and standardization of data and metadata. This portion of our article is intended to serve as a guide for other, similar research projects, offering a method of efficiently organizing complex systems of documents, particularly those where the original file structure should be maintained as closely as possible to preserve meaning. We finally consider the challenge of placing soldiers’ origins onto a mapped topography, which leads us to analyze the considerable issues around colonial mapping as a whole, and to develop a way of navigating this hurdle. Our article illuminates various challenges as we digitize and trace individual lives within complex archival data. In each case we have described the challenge we found, analyzed it, and developed ways of addressing or solving problems which we believe will stand as best practice when applied beyond our project.

William Charles Donald Lovett

William Charles Donald Lovett (“Donald”) was born in Ystradowen in the Vale of Glamorgan, the eldest son of two school teachers. He was educated at Caerleon, where his father was...

William John Coleman Hill

On qualifying, William John Coleman Hill (“Billy”) volunteered for the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving with the Sierra Leone Battalion of the Royal West African Frontier Force in India and...

Journal ofthe Royal West African Frontier Force: a new source you may have missed

<i>Journal ofthe Royal West African Frontier Force</i>: a new source you may have missed

Douglas Thomson Gordon

After qualifying at Aberdeen, Douglas Thomson Gordon did his national service as medical officer to the Royal West African Frontier Force in what was then the Gold Coast (Ghana). After...

An Enduring Commitment: The British Military's Role in Sierra Leone

The 2007 presidential elections in Sierra Leone passed largely unnoticed by the British media. What reports there were in the months before the polls spoke of angry and disillusioned people and the...

Charles Frederick Rolland

Charles Rolland was educated at Loretto School in Edinburgh and at Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities. He played first team rugby throughout and obtained first class honours. His father, William, a...

The Significance of the Niger Coast Constabulary Band of Calabar in Nigerian Highlife Music: An Historical Perspective

Scholars agreed that Highlife is a syncretic neo-traditional music arising from the interaction of African and Western music. However, views defer in the manner in which it came into existence in Nigeria. Some hold that it originated from Ghana; others believe that it is local in origin and yet there are those who believe that it originated independently in several places across the west African coast. While each of these perspectives have their merits, they belie the existence of a much older brass band tradition in Calabar from which evolved the first prototypes of Highlife in Nigeria. This paper discusses the history of the Niger Coast Constabulary band as arising out of the conflict in trade relations in the \'oil rivers\' to becoming a military band following the colonization of the area by Britain in 1900. Its transfer to Kaduna in 1914 to becoming the band of the 1st battalion of the West African Frontier Force and how prior to this, it provided Calabar with well trained brass band musicians and bands, and how the downturn of the economy of Calabar in the 1930s led to migration of these musicians to other economically prosperous towns in Nigeria and in the process spread the brass band music throughout Nigeria, are all highlighted. Of significance is the relocation of a product of the Calabar brass band school, the Calabar Brass Band, to Lagos where it imparted on the music scene and played a significant role in the emergence of dance band highlife in Nigeria. Nigerian Music Review Vol.5 2004: 37-50

Police intelligence in Ghana in the late 1940s and 1950s

Before the riots of February 1948 the Gold Coast's police force had played a slight role in the country's politics. From their inception they had been deployed to contain local 'disturbances', but spent more time on urban crime, the policing of licensing and from the 1920s on the growing burden of traffic regulation. Significantly, the acquisition of political intelligence, a role usually associated with a specialist unit, the Special Branch, had not been part of their duties. The February riots were a major disaster for the police. They failed to contain the disturbances and for years the Colonial Office was bombarded by requests for financial reparation for damage during the urban disturbances. The Police Commissioner had personally sanctioned the ex-servicemen's demonstration and march which had eventually led to the tragic shooting at the Christiansborg crossroads, and he had done so because he 'was satisfied that untoward incidents arising from this large assembly of men were improbable'. This view was not shared by the town's District Commissioner nor by the officer commanding the Accra contingent of the Royal West African Frontier Force who put his troops on standby at dawn on 28 February. The civil authority and the army's reading of what would happen proved to be a better assessment of the ways that things might work out. In the event an ill-equipped, under-manned and very frightened police detachment eventually fired upon the crowd; the rest is history.

Measuring the War Experience: Ghanaian Soldiers in World War II

During World War II, some 65,000 Ghanaians were under the command of British officers in the Royal West African Frontier Force, and since India was the transit and refuelling station for those en route to Burma, the 30,000 who served there briefly experienced life in both countries. There has been much conjecture about the impact of the war on participating African soldiers,1 and this article focuses on the nature and socio-economic implications of their experience as later revealed by the veterans themselves in two rather overlooked sources of information: oral interviews and locally published materials.

Wallace-Johnson and the Sierra Leone Labor Crisis of 1939

During 1939 a political crisis developed in Sierra Leone which had far reaching implications for colonial policy in British Africa. At the end of January workers struck the War Department defense works and the Mabella Coaling Company. Simultaneously some gunners in the West African Frontier Force (WAFF) stationed in Murray Town refused to go on parade, in army eyes an act of mutiny. In the midst of these events an intense campaign to rouse working-class consciousness began in the African Standard, the newly founded weekly published by the West African Youth Leagus (WAYL). This campaign focused on the wage-earning sector of Freetown, particularly the police and laborers engaged in essential works like defense construction. Editorial warnings published at the same times that Sierra Leoneans should not support the coming world war sounded a more ominous note as far as the authorities were concerned. The colonial administration responded to these developments by initiating legislation, six bills in all, designed to suppress anticolonial opposition and contain the labor movement. While these bills were still under preparation, miners in the Marampa iron mines conducted the largest and best organized strike to occur before 1940, thus increasing the urgency of the situation. The administration hastened the drafting of its repressive ordinances and presenting them to the Legislative Council for enactment. In the meantime the Sierra Leonean community combined in a massive effort to oppose the bills, culminating in the largest mass demonstration against the government to occur in Freetown up to that time.

West Indian Troops and the Defence of British West Africa in the Nineteenth Century

In the nineteenth century one can distinguish between three different stages in the development of British military policy in Africa. Up to 1840 British military policy relied heavily on eighteenthcentury precedent and revolved round the triple pillars of the Africa Squadron, the forts, and the military personnel, made up mainly of Europeans who were brought fran Great Britain or raised among European volunteers at the coast in times of emergency. Between 1840 and 1870 the British relied rather heavily on the Indian troops, whcn they used in a strategic role to deal with military problems in her African possessions. During this period attempts were made to raise small but local paramilitary units to supplement the efforts of the India Regiments. Fran the 1870's onwards the limitations in the use of the Indian troops and the need to cut down military expenditure led to the emphasis placed on the raising of ccmparatively large African and local forces which later took over the duties previously undertaken by the India Regiments. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, when the need arose, these local forces were amalgamated into what came to be known as the West African Frontier Force, which eventually became the instrument used by the British government not only to ward off European trespassers in those areas which it claimed but also to consolidate its authority in Africa in subsequent years.

The Post-War Careers of Ex-Servicemen in Ghana and Uganda

The modern military development of the British East and West African territories reached its highest level during World War II. Great Britain at that time put aside her standing policy of maintaining establishments sufficient only for colonial domestic needs and recruited forces for general use against Germany, Italy, and Japan.1 Building on a base provided by the Royal West African Frontier Force and the King's African Rifles of East and Central Africa, Britain recruited approximately 470,000 Africans during the war, including over 65,000 from the Gold Coast and 77,000 from Uganda; about 80 per cent of these were serving when the war ended. Although the majority enlisted in army infantry or service corps, tens of thousands served as artisans and technicians, and others in small naval and air establishments. Modern war requirements caused not only a restructuring of African colonial forces, but also forced considerable changes in military recruitment. The 'martial races' traditionally favoured by British officers had to be supplemented by large numbers of skilled and literate recruits from other African peoples; for example, the Ibo, Baganda, and Kikuyu. This rapid expansion of the forces also meant an increased need for British commissioned and non-commissioned officers, who were recruited from Great Britain as well as locally. The many different languages spoken by the new forces meant that simple English displaced Hausa in the west and, to a lesser degree, Swahili in the east, as the standard military language.

Reviews of Books

Abstract Abstract Military Concepts and Philosophy. By Rear-Admiral Henry E. Eccles, U.S.N. (Rutgers University Press.) $9.00. China and the Bomb. By Morton H. Halperin. (Pall Mall Press.) 30s. Education in the Armed Forces. By James C. Shelburne and Kenneth J. Groves. (The Center for Applied Research in Education, New York.) How Nations Negotiate. By Fred Charles Iklé. (Harper & Row.) 45s. Remnants of Empire: The United Nations and the End of Colonialism. By David W. Wainhouse. (Harper & Row for the Council on Foreign Relations.) 26s. The Security of Southern Asia. By D. E. Kennedy. (Chatto & Windus for The Institute for Strategic Studies.) 35s. China and the Peace of Asia. (Ed.) Alastair Buchan. (Chatto & Windus for The Institute for Strategic Studies.) 30s. The Prevailing Wind: Witness in Indo-China. By Michael Field. (Methuen.) 42s. The Birth of the Missile: The Secrets of Peenemünde. By Ernst Klee and Otto Merk. (Harrap.) 30s. The Fortress that Never Was: The Myth of the Nazi Alpine Redoubt. By Rodney G. Minott. (Longmans.) 25s. The Thousand Plan: The Story of the First Thousand Bomber Raid on Cologne. By Ralph Barker. (Chatto & Windus.) 30s. The Forgotten Men: Commandos in War-time China. By Iain Adamson. (G. Bell & Sons.) 21s. Anders Lassen, V.C. By Suzanne Lassen. (Muller.) 35s. From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: Volume II, The War Years: To the Eve of Jutland, 1914–1916. By Arthur J. Marder. (Oxford University Press.) 60s. The Education of a Navy: The Development of British Naval Strategic Thought, 1867–1914. By D. M. Schurman. (Cassell.) 30s. Sailor at Sea. By Vice-Admiral Harold Hickling. (Kimber.) 30s. Admiral of the Pacific: The Life of Yamamoto. By John Deane Potter. (Heinemann.) 35s. The Most Formidable Thing: The Story of the Submarine from its earliest days to the end of World War I. By William Jameson. (Hart-Davis.) 42s. Uniforms of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. By John Mollo. (Hugh Evelyn.) 63s. A Roll of Honour: The Story of the Indian Army, 1939–1945. By Major-General J. G. Elliott. (Cassell.) 36s. Tanks in Battle. By Colonel H. C. B. Rogers, O.B.E. (Seeley, Service.) 35s. From Gallipoli to Singapore: The Gordon Bennett Story. By Frank Legg. (Angus & Robertson.) 36s. The Queen's Guards. By Major Sir Henry Legge-Bourke, K.B.E. (Macdonald.) 75s. The Lambeth and Southwark Volunteers: A Century of Voluntary Service in the Volunteers and Territorials, 1860–1960. By J. M. A. Tamplin. (Privately printed.) 5 gns. The History of the Royal West African Frontier Force. By Colonel A. Haywood, C.M.G., C.B.E., D.S.O., and Brigadier F. A. S. Clarke, D.S.O., p.s.c. (Gale & Polden.) 42s. Jackboot: The Story of the German Soldier. By John Laffin. (Cassell.) 30s. Fundamentals of Guerrilla Warfare. By General Abdul H. Nasution. (Pall Mall Press.) 40s. Julius Caesar: Man, Soldier, and Tyrant. By Major-General J. F. C. Fuller. (Eyre & Spottiswoode.) 42s. Battle for a Continent: The French and Indian War, 1754–1763. By Harrison Bird. (Oxford University Press.) 48s. Nelson's Battles. By Oliver Warner. (Batsford.) 45s. Admiral Hawke. By Ruddock F. Mackay. (Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press.) 48s. Before the Lamps Went Out. By Geoffrey Marcus. (Allen & Unwin.) 35s. The Secret Battle. By A. P. Herbert. (Methuen.) 6s. Memoirs of an Infantry Officer. By Siegfried Sassoon. (Faber.) 7s. 6d. The Silence of Colonel Bramble & the Discourses of Doctor O'Grady. By André Maurois. (Bodley Head.) 21s.

The Dissolution of the Royal West African Frontier Force

The Dissolution of the Royal West African Frontier Force

Tuberculin Sensitivity in the Royal West African Frontier Force (gold coast)

Summary o (1) The results of a tuberculin-sensitivity survey among African soldiers in the Gold Coast are presented. (2) Approximately 97 per cent gave positive reactions. Differences between soldiers from different parts of the country were negligible. The percentage of positives rose significantly with age and length of military service. (3) The relation of immunity to the clinical forms of tuberculosis in West Africa is discussed in the light of these findings.

The Story of the Royal West African Frontier Force

The Story of the Royal West African Frontier Force

A Hausa Reading Book

Journal Article A Hausa Reading Book Get access A Hausa Reading Book. By Captain Charlton, Lancashire Fusiliers (late of the West African Frontier Force). (Oxford: University Press.) African Affairs, Volume VIII, Issue XXIX, October 1908, Page 110, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a098974 Published: 01 October 1908