Dixon Denham ( 1786 - 1828 )

Birth: Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, London, England, United Kingdom (01 January 1786) Death: Freetown, Sierra Leone, Africa (08 May 1828) Burial: Circular Road cemetery, Freetown, Sierra Leone (15 June 1828) Profession: Soldier, explorer, colonial administrator Research field: Geography; natural history; botany Education: Merchant Taylors School (1794-1800) Career: Articled to a Solicitor; joined Royal Welsh Fusiliers (1811), fought in Spain, Portugal and France; commissioned Second Lieutenant in 1819; led the 'Bornu Mission' for the British Colonial Office (1821), 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 visiting the Island of Fernando Po where the British leased bases for their anti-slavery patrols and to inspect Portuguese slavery facilities.