06/03/2023, 08:42 George Taubman Goldie - Wikipedia

George Taubman Goldie

Sir George Dashwood Taubman Goldie KCMG FRS (20
The Right Honourable
May 1846 – 20 August 1925) was a Manx administrator who
played a major role in the founding of Nigeria.[1] In many
Sir George Goldie
ways, his role was similar to that of Cecil Rhodes elsewhere KCMG FRS
in Africa but he did not seek publicity.

Early life
George Goldie descended from an old Scottish family. Born
at The Nunnery, Douglas in the Isle of Man, the youngest son
of Lieutenant Colonel John Taubman Goldie-Taubman,
Speaker of the House of Keys, by his second wife, Caroline
Everina, daughter of John Eykyn Hovenden, a barrister of
Hemingford Grey, Huntingdonshire. Sir George resumed his
paternal name, Goldie, by Royal Licence in 1887.[2]

He was educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich,

and for about two years held a commission in the Royal
Engineers. Unusually for the time, Goldie was a convinced
atheist.[3] President of the
Royal Geographical Society
In 1870, he married, Matilda (later known as "Maude") In office
Catherine, daughter of John William Elliott of Wakefield. He
22 May 1905 – 25 May 1908
travelled in all parts of Africa, gaining an extensive
knowledge of the continent, and first visited the country of Preceded by Sir Clements
the Niger in 1877.[2] Markham
Succeeded by Leonard Darwin
The National African Company Governor of the
Royal Niger Company
He conceived the idea of adding to the British Empire the In office
then little known regions of the lower and middle Niger, and 10 July 1886 – 31 December 1899
for over twenty years his efforts were devoted to the Personal details
realization of this conception. The method by which he
determined to work was the revival of government by Born George Taubman
chartered companies within the empire, a method supposed Goldie
to be buried with the British East India Company. The first 20 May 1846
step was to combine all British commercial interests in the Douglas, Isle of Man
Niger, and this he accomplished in 1879 when the United Died 25 August 1925
African Company was formed.[2] (aged 79)
London, Middlesex,
In 1881, Goldie sought a charter from Gladstone's
government. Objections of various kinds were raised. To England
meet them the capital of the company (renamed the National Resting place Brompton Cemetery
African Company) was increased from £250,000 to
Spouse Matilda Catherine
£1,000,000, and great energy was displayed in founding Elliott
stations on the Niger.[2] ​
​(m. 1870; died 1898)​

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At this time French traders, encouraged by Léon Gambetta, Children Alice Goldie-
established themselves on the lower river, thus rendering it Taubman
difficult for the company to obtain territorial rights; but the Valentine Francis
Frenchmen were bought out in 1884, so that at the Berlin
Goldie-Taubman
Conference on West Africa in 1885, Goldie, present as an
expert on matters relating to the river, was able to announce Awards Livingstone Medal
that on the lower Niger the British flag alone flew. Meantime (1906)
the Niger coast line had been placed under British
protection. Through Joseph Thomson, David McIntosh, D. W. Sargent, J. Flint, William Wallace,
E. Dangerfield and numerous other agents, over 400 political treaties drawn up by Goldie were
made with the chiefs of the lower Niger and the Hausa states. The scruples of the British
government being overcome, a charter was at length granted (July 1886), the National African
Company becoming the Royal Niger Company, with Henry Austin Bruce, 1st Baron Aberdare as
governor and Goldie as vice-governor. In 1895, on Lord Aberdare's death, Goldie became governor
of the company, whose destinies he had guided throughout.[4]

German opposition
The building up of Nigeria as a British state had to be carried on in face of further difficulties raised
by French travellers with political missions, and also in face of German opposition. From 1884 to
1890, Otto von Bismarck was a persistent antagonist, and the strenuous efforts he made to secure
for Germany the basin of the lower Niger and Lake Chad were even more dangerous to Goldie's
schemes of empire than the ambitions of France. Eduard Robert Flegel, who had travelled in
Nigeria during 1882–1884 under the auspices of the British company, was sent out in 1885 by the
newly formed German Colonial Society to secure treaties for Germany, which had established itself
at Cameroon.[5]

After Flegel's death in 1886, his work was continued by his companion Dr Staudinger, while Herr
Hoenigsberg was despatched to stir up trouble in the occupied portions of the company's territory,
or, as he expressed it, "to burst up the charter". He was finally arrested at Onitsha, and, after trial
by the company's supreme court at Asaba, was expelled from the country. Bismarck then sent out
his nephew, Herr von Puttkamer, as German consul general to Nigeria, with orders to report on
this affair, and when, this report was published in a White Book, Bismarck demanded heavy
damages from the company.[5]

Meanwhile, Bismarck maintained constant pressure on the British government to compel the
Royal Niger Company to a division of spheres of influence, whereby Great Britain would have lost a
third, and the most valuable part, of the company's territory. But he fell from power in March 1890
and, in July, following Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, concluded the
Heligoland–Zanzibar Treaty with Germany. The aggressive action of Germany in Nigeria entirely
ceased, and the door was opened for a final settlement of the Nigeria–Cameroon frontiers.[5]

These negotiations, which resulted in an agreement in 1893, were initiated by Goldie as a means of
arresting the advance of France into Nigeria from the direction of the Congo. By conceding to
Germany a long but narrow strip of territory between Adamawa and Lake Chad, to which she had
no treaty claims, a barrier was raised against French expeditions, semi-military and semi-
exploratory, which sought to enter Nigeria from the east. Later French efforts at aggression were
made from the western or Dahomeyan side, despite an agreement concluded with France in 1890
respecting the northern frontier.[5]

The end of the Company

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The hostility of certain Fula princes led the company to despatch, in 1897, an expedition against
the Muslim states of Nupe and Ilorin. This expedition was organized and personally directed by
Goldie and was completely successful. Internal peace was thus secured, but in the following year
the differences with France in regard to the frontier line became acute, and compelled the
intervention of the British government.[5]

In the negotiations which ensued Goldie was instrumental in preserving for Great Britain the
whole of the navigable stretch of the lower Niger. It was, however, evidently impossible for a
chartered company to hold its own against the state-supported protectorates of France and
Germany, and in consequence, on 1 January 1900, the Royal Niger Company transferred its
territories to the British government for the sum of £865,000. The ceded territory together with
the small Niger Coast Protectorate, already under imperial control, was formed into the two
protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria.[5]

Later enterprises
In 1903–1904, at the request of the Chartered Company of South Africa, Goldie visited Rhodesia
and examined the situation in connection with the agitation for self-government by the
Rhodesians. In 1902–1903 he was one of the Royal Commissioners who inquired into the military
preparations for the war in South Africa (1899–1902) and into the operations up to the occupation
of Pretoria, and in 1905–1906 was a member of the Royal Commission which investigated the
methods of disposal of war stores after peace had been made.[5]

Later life
Sir George Goldie died in 1925 at the age of 79 and
is buried in Brompton Cemetery in London. He was
survived by two children. His wife's name on the
tombstone is Lady Maude Goldie (1847–1898),
reflecting her evident use of an alternative form of
the name originating in Old German, 'Matilda'
being the Latin form; the same was the case with
the Empress Matilda.[6]

Honours Gravestone, Brompton Cemetery, London

In 1905, he was elected President of the Royal

Geographical Society and held that office for three years. In 1908 he was chosen as an Alderman of
the London County Council. Goldie was created KCMG in 1887, and a Privy Councillor in 1898.[5]

He became a Fellow of the Royal Society (1902), Honorary D.C.L. of the University of Oxford
(1897) and Honorary LL.D. of the University of Cambridge (1897).[5] In 1906, he was awarded the
RSGS Livingstone Medal for his contribution to Geography[7]

Sir George was also at some point Vice President of the Royal Colonial Institute.

Pseudohaje goldii (Goldie's tree cobra), a rare West African venomous snake, was named in
Goldie's honour by George Albert Boulenger in 1895.[8]

In popular culture

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Goldie was played by Scottish actor Ian McDiarmid in the 2016 historical drama The Lost City of
Z.[9]

References
1. Chisholm 1911.
2. Chisholm 1911, p. 211.
3. David Grann -The Lost City of Z (Pocket Books, 2010) p.71
4. Chisholm 1911, pp. 211–212.
5. Chisholm 1911, p. 212.
6. The Artistry and Tradition of Tennyson's Battle Poetry, Timothy J. Lovelace, 2004, Routledge,
ch. 5
7. RSGS memorial to medal recipients, Perth.
8. Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5 ("Goldie",
p. 103).
9. "Ian McDiarmid" (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001519/). IMDb. Retrieved 4 August 2021.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.
(1911). "Goldie, Sir George Dashwood Taubman". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.).
Cambridge University Press. pp. 211–212.

External links
Works by or about George Dashwood Taubman Goldie at Wikisource

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