| Authorised form of name | Denham; Dixon (1786 - 1828); explorer |
| Dates | 1786 - 1828 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, London, England, United Kingdom |
| Date of birth | 01 January 1786 |
| Place of death | Freetown, Sierra Leone, Africa |
| Date of death | 08 May 1828 |
| DatesAndPlaces | Burial:
Circular Road cemetery, Freetown, Sierra Leone, Africa (15 June 1828) |
| Occupation | Soldier, explorer, colonial administrator |
| Research field | Geography |
| Natural history |
| Botany |
| Activity | Education:
Merchant Taylors School (1793-1800)
Career:
Articled to a Solicitor; joined Royal Welsh Fusiliers (1811), fought in Spain, Portugal and France; instructor, Royal Military College, Sandhurst (1818); commissioned Second Lieutenant in 1819; led the 'Bornu Mission' for the British Colonial Office (1822-1825), one of the first scientific explorations of north and central Africa which journeyed from Tripoli across the Sahara and attempted unsuccesfully to locate the source of the River Niger, with accounts of anything else of interest to be sent to British Government including opportunities for establishing trade links with west Africa; explored Lake Chad from Kuka in the Bornu Empire (now Kukawa, Nigeria) and determined it was not the source of the Niger, whilst his companions Walter Oudney and Hugh Clapperton went further west; Denham's accounts of the Bornu Mission provide a written record of parts of pre-colonial africa including transportation of slaves from the Sudan and the desert salt industry as well as a record of African geography and natural history; promoted to Lieutenant Colonel after return from expedition, and became 'Superintendent of Liberated Africans', a post specially created for him, in Sierra Leone (1825); travelled through villages around Freetown where slaves liberated by the British were settled, and sent detailed recommendations to the Colonial Office; British Resident/Lieutenant Governor of Sierra Leone (1828, for five weeks before his death); died of fever on 8 May 1828 after a visit to the Island of Fernando Po where the British leased bases for their anti-slavery patrols, to inspect Portuguese slavery facilities.
Honours:
Waterloo Medal 1815 |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 08/06/1826 |
| Age at election | 40 |
| Relationships | Son of James Denham and his wife, Eleanor, née Symonds |
| PublishedWorks | 'Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa in the Years 1822, 1823 and 1824' Published by John Murray, (London) 1826 |
| OtherInfo | On election as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1826 Denham was cited for making 'important and valuable discoveries in northern and central Africa'. Most of these discoveries came as a result of The 'Bornu Mission' (1822-1825) for the British Colonial Office, which was carried out under the protection of Yusuf Karamanli, the Pasha of Tripoli, at the time an Ottoman controlled martitime state that formed the northern terminus for the Saharan trade route and the starting point for the expedition. The British Government paid Karamanli the equivalent of £1.5 million to assure escorts and safe passage for the expedition across the Sahara on the understanding the money would allow Karamanli to advance his own imperial ambitions to conquer the states of Bornu and Sudan and, as a result of the increased wealth, relinquish the slave trade. The British funds financed an army to escort the expedition, which Karamanli used as an opportunity to raid local communities and send enslaved people for sale in the north Africa slave markets. Denham accompanied one of these raids from Kukawa into the Mandara Mountains.
In 1825 Denham was appointed as Superintentendant of Liberated Africans in Sierra Leone. From 1808 to 1874, the city of Freetown , Sierra Leone served as the capital of British West Africa. It also served as the base for the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron, which was charged with enforcing the ban on the slave trade in the British Empire (Slave Trade Act 1807). When the squadron liberated slaves on trading ships, they brought most to Sierra Leone, and Freetown in particular, where many settled. The freed slaves were joined by West Indian and African soldiers, who had fought for Britain in the Napoleonic Wars and settled there afterward. |
| Source | Sources:
Bulloch's Roll; DNB; Wikipedia
References:
Dane Kennedy, 'Imperial Parasitism: British Explorers and African Empires' in Echoes of Empire: Memory, Identity and Colonial Legacies, ed. Kalypso Nicolaidis, Gabrielle Maas and Berny Sebe (London) 2014
Papers, letters to his brother 1821-1825, notebooks and journals deposited with Royal Geographical Society (the Denham Collection)
Early career details at Museum of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, The Castle, Caernarfon, Gwynedd LL55 2AY
Murray, Angus 'Major Dixon Denham - Profile of a Brave Man' in Journal of the 153 (Sahara Desert Exploration) Club, Newsletter 83, April 2000
Website: http://www.manntaylor.com/153.html (See Denham and Clapperton 1 and 2 - notes on African expedition, and sketches and maps by Major Denham)
Notes:
On election certificate: proposer 'Ulysses B Burgh' struck through, with note: 'not a Fellow'
Portrait by Thomas Philips in National Portrait Gallery, reference NPG 2441 |
| Code | NA2692 |