Archibald Ross Colquhoun ( ; March 1848 – 18 December 1914) was a British explorer and the first

Administrator of Southern Rhodesia The British South Africa Company appointed a variety of officials to govern Southern Rhodesia (called Zimbabwe since 1980) between 1890 and 1923. The most prominent of these were the Administrator and the Chief Magistrate, the first of which was i ...

. He held office from October 1890 until September 1892, the period of the founding of Fort Salisbury (now

Harare Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...

) after the arrival of the

Pioneer Column The Pioneer Column was a force raised by Cecil Rhodes and his British South Africa Company in 1890 and used in his efforts to annex the territory of Mashonaland, later part of Zimbabwe (once Southern Rhodesia). Background Rhodes was anxio ...

. At this time the administrator's jurisdiction covered

Mashonaland Mashonaland is a region in northern Zimbabwe. Currently, Mashonaland is divided into four provinces, * Mashonaland West * Mashonaland Central * Mashonaland East * Harare The Zimbabwean capital of Harare, a province unto itself, lies entirely ...

only, as

Matabeleland Matabeleland is a region located in southwestern Zimbabwe that is divided into three provinces: Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, and Matabeleland South. These provinces are in the west and south-west of Zimbabwe, between the Limpopo and Zambe ...

was annexed in 1893. He was also acting Chief Magistrate of Southern Rhodesia between 24 July 1891 and 18 September 1891.

Career

Colquhoun was born in South Africa, and spent much of his life travelling. In the 1880s he took part in several exploratory expeditions to

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

Indo-China Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...

and southern

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

, for which he was awarded the 1884 Founder's Medal of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

. He left for

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

in 1889. After his term of office as Administrator in

Southern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked self-governing colony, self-governing British Crown colony in southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The reg ...

he settled in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

, but continued to travel. From 1900–1901, he and his new wife

Ethel Ethel (also '' æthel'') is an Old English word meaning "noble", today often used as a feminine given name. Etymology and historic usage The word means ''æthel'' "noble". It is frequently attested as the first element in Anglo-Saxon names, b ...

travelled in the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

—the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, whic ...

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and e ...

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

— returning to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

via

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part ...

. From 1902 to 1903, he travelled in the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. During 1904 and 1905, he returned temporarily to Rhodesia. In 1913, Colquhoun inspected the

Panama Canal The Panama Canal ( es, Canal de Panamá, link=no) is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and divides North and South America. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a condui ...

construction work and carried out one last mission for the

Royal Colonial Institute The Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS) is a non-governmental organisation with a mission to promote the value of the Commonwealth and the values upon which it is based. The Society upholds the values of the Commonwealth Charter, promoting confl ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...

before his death on 18 December 1914.

Family

Colquhoun married at St. Paul′s church,

Stafford Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It lies about north of Wolverhampton, south of Stoke-on-Trent and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 70,145 in th ...

, on 8 March 1900 to Ethel Maud Cookson (1874–1950), eldest daughter of Samuel Cookson, of Forebridge, Stafford. After his death, his widow remarried John Tawse Jollie and settled in Southern Rhodesia, where she became the first female parliamentarian in the British overseas empire.

References

Bibliography

* ''Across Chrysê: Being the Narrative of a Journey of Exploration Through the South China Border Lands from Canton to Mandalay'' (1883)
Volume 1Volume 2

''Amongst the Shans'' (1885)
* ''English policy in the Far east, 'The Times' special correspondence'' (1885)
Volume 3

''Matabeleland: the war, and our position in South Africa'' (1894)
*
China in Transformation with maps and diagrams
(1898), Harper & Bros edition.
New edition, British library, 2011
).
''The Key of the Pacific'' (1895)

''Overland to China'' (1900)
* Colquhoun, Archibald R. (Archibald Ross) (1900)
The problem in China and British policy
London: King.
University of Hong Kong Libraries, Digital Initiatives, China Through Western Eyes

''Greater America'' (1904)

''The Africander Land'' (1906)

''Dan to Beersheba: Work and Travel in Four Continents'' (1908)
Lowry, Donal (2004). "Colquhoun, Archibald Ross (1848–1914)," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press. Lowry, Donal (June 1997). "'White Woman's Country': Ethel Tawse Jollie ee Ethel Colquhounand the Making of White Rhodesia". Journal of Southern African Studies. 23 (2). JSTOR 2637621.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Colquhoun, A. R. 1848 births 1914 deaths Rhodesian politicians Politicians from Cape Town British explorers of Africa British explorers Explorers of Asia Explorers of China