George "Sam" Albert Shepperson (7 January 1922 – 2 April 2020) was a British historian and Africanist, noted particularly for his work on

Malawian This article is about the demographic features of the population of Malawi, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. Malawi deri ...

and

African-American history African-American history began with the arrival of Africans to North America in the 16th and 17th centuries. Former Spanish slaves who had been freed by Francis Drake arrived aboard the Golden Hind at New Albion in California in 1579. The ...

. He was William Robertson Professor of Commonwealth and American History at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 1 ...

from 1963 until 1986. He was named

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

in 1989.

Early life and career

George "Sam" Shepperson was born in

Peterborough Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire unti ...

, Northamptonshire in 1922, the son of a fitter. He was educated at the King’s School, Peterborough, and read History and English at

St John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corporation established by a charter dated 9 April 1511. The ...

. He completed his Certificate of Education after his war service. He was commissioned in the

Northamptonshire Regiment The Northamptonshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 until 1960. In 1960, it was amalgamated with the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment to form the 2nd East Anglian Regiment (Duchess of Gloucester's O ...

in 1943, and was on

secondment Secondment is the assignment of a member of one organisation to another organisation for a temporary period. Job rotation The employee typically retains their salary and other employment rights from their primary organization but they work close ...

to the

King's African Rifles The King's African Rifles (KAR) was a multi-battalion British colonial regiment raised from Britain's various possessions in East Africa from 1902 until independence in the 1960s. It performed both military and internal security functions within ...

from 1943 to 1946 as an officer in the 13th (

Nyasaland Nyasaland () was a British protectorate located in Africa that was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Between 1953 and 1963, Nyasaland was part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasala ...

) Battalion, stationed in

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

Tanganyika Tanganyika may refer to: Places * Tanganyika Territory (1916–1961), a former British territory which preceded the sovereign state * Tanganyika (1961–1964), a sovereign state, comprising the mainland part of present-day Tanzania * Tanzania Main ...

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

and

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 ...

. While stationed in

East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa: Due to the historica ...

he developed his interest in British imperial history and Africa. He began work teaching Imperial and American History at the University of Edinburgh in 1948 and was appointed to the William Robertson Chair in 1963, and retired in 1986. He had been a Visiting Professor at

Roosevelt University Roosevelt University is a private university with campuses in Chicago and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university was named in honor of United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The unive ...

and the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, Rhode Island College, what is now

Makerere University Makerere University, Kampala (; Mak) is Uganda's largest and oldest institution of higher learning, first established as a technical school in 1922. It became an independent national university in 1970. Today, Makerere University is composed of ni ...

and

Dalhousie University Dalhousie University (commonly known as Dal) is a large public research university in Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the fou ...

. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the

University of York , mottoeng = On the threshold of wisdom , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £8.0 million , budget = £403.6 million , chancellor = Heather Melville , vice_chancellor = Charlie Jeffery , students ...

in 1987 and was a visiting scholar at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

1986–87. In 1990 he was named a Fellow of the

Educational Institute of Scotland The Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) is the oldest teachers' trade union in the world, having been founded in 1847 when dominies became concerned about the effect of changes to the system of education in Scotland on their professional st ...

. Shepperson was a pathbreaking historian of the

African Diaspora The African diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from native Africans or people from Africa, predominantly in the Americas. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the West and Central Africans who were e ...

, the history of the African peoples and their spread across the world and was awarded the 'Distinguished Africanist' award in 2007 from the

African Studies Association of the United Kingdom The African Studies Association of the United Kingdom (ASAUK) formed in 1963 "to advance African studies, particularly in the United Kingdom, by providing facilities for the interchange of information and ideas and the co-ordination of activities ...

. His research specialism was Malawian history, but he also wrote on

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

history (and was chair of the

British Association for American Studies The British Association for American Studies is a learned society in the field of American studies. It was founded in 1955. It produces the ''Journal of American Studies'', ''American Studies in Britain'', ''US Studies Online'', BAAS Paperbacks, an ...

from 1971–74) and black British history (particularly relating to the black presence in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. Many of his writings, including on

John Chilembwe John Chilembwe (June 1871 – 3 February 1915) was a Baptist pastor, educator and revolutionary who trained as a minister in the United States, returning to Nyasaland in 1901. He was an early figure in the resistance to colonialism in Nyasaland ...

and the

Chilembwe uprising The Chilembwe uprising was a rebellion against British colonial rule in Nyasaland (modern-day Malawi) which took place in January 1915. It was led by John Chilembwe, an American-educated Baptist minister. Based around his Church in the villag ...

, are seen as seminal contributions. ''Independent African: John Chilembwe and the Origins, Setting and Significance of the Nyasaland Native Rising 1915'' (1958) was one of the first scholarly works on African history and was widely read by African nationalists after its publication. Shepperson provided an account of his life as an Africanist historian as a contribution to ''The Emergence of African History at British Universities: An Autobiographical Approach'' (1995, edited by

Anthony Kirk-Greene Anthony Hamilton Millard Kirk-Greene CMG MBE (16 May 1925 – 8 July 2018) was a British historian and ethnographer best known for his works on Nigerian history and the history of British colonial administration in Africa. After a career as a ...

). He was awarded the CBE in 1989 as chairman of the Scottish Committee of the

Commonwealth Institute The Commonwealth Education Trust is a registered charity established in 2007 as the successor trust to the Commonwealth Institute. The trust focuses on primary and secondary education and the training of teachers and invests on educational pro ...

Selected publications

*'Education sponsors freedom—the story of African native John Chilembwe' ''Negro history bulletin'', v. 15, Jan. 1952. *'Ethiopianism and African nationalism'. ''Phylon'', v. 14, (1953) *'Frederick Douglass and Scotland', ''The Journal of African American History'', 38, 3 (1953). *''Independent African: John Chilembwe and the Origins, Setting and Significance of the Nyasaland Native Rising 1915'' (with Thomas Price) (1958, 5th edition 1987) *'Notes on Negro American Influences on the Emergence of African Nationalism', ''The Journal of African History'', 1, 2 (1960). *'External factors in the development of African nationalism, with particular reference to British Central Africa'. ''Phylon'', v. 22 (1961) *'Pan-Africanism and "Pan-Africanism": Some Historical Notes', ''Phylon'', 23, No. 4 (1962). *'The Negro and the New Frontier', ''The Political Quarterly'', 33, 2 (1962). *'Abolitionism and African Political Thought', ''Transition'' 12 (1964). *''David Livingstone and the Rovuma: A notebook edited with introduction and related documents'' (1965). *'The African diaspora: or Africa abroad', ''African Forum'', 2 (1966) *''Myth and reality in Malawi'' (1966) *''West African Countries and Peoples'' by

Africanus Horton Africanus Horton (1835–1883), also known as James Beale, was a Krio African nationalist writer and an esteemed medical surgeon in the British Army from Freetown, Sierra Leone. Africanus Horton was a surgeon, scientist, soldier, and a politica ...

(editor) (1969) *'Introduction' to ''The Negro'' by

W.E.B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in ...

(1970) *'Mungo Park and the Scottish Contribution to Africa', ''African Affairs'', 70, (1971) *''Joseph Booth and the African Diaspora'' (1972) *'Kipling and the Boer War' in John Goss (ed.) ''Kipling: The man, his work and his world'' (1972) *''Scotland, Europe, and the American Revolution'' (co-edited with

Owen Dudley Edwards Owen Dudley Edwards (born 27 March 1938) is an Irish historian and former Reader in Commonwealth and American History at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He is the son of Professor Robert Dudley Edwards and brother to the Irish writer, Rut ...

) (1976) *'America through Africa and Asia', ''Journal of American Studies'', Vol. 14, No. 1, BAAS Jubilee Issue (Apr., 1980). *'The Fifth Pan-African Conference, 1945 and the All African Peoples Congress, 1958,'(with St. Clare Drake), ''Contributions in Black Studies'', 8, 5 (1986) *'Malawi and the Poetry of Two World Wars,' ''The Society of Malawi Journal'', 43, 2 (1990). *'African Diaspora: Concept and Context' in ''Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora'', edited by Joseph E. Harris (1993). *'Paul Robeson in Edinburgh'. ''University of Edinburgh Journal''. 37-38 (1998). *'Memories of Dr Banda', ''The Society of Malawi Journal'' 51, 1 (1998). *'Degree Award Oration', ''The Society of Malawi Journal'', 56, 1 (2003). *'Islam in Central Africa: A Historiographical Document', ''The Society of Malawi Journal'', 59, 2 (2006). *'A Major Chilembwe Letter', ''The Society of Malawi Journal'', 68, 1 (2015). *'Dr John McCracken: A personal tribute', ''The Society of Malawi Journal'', 71, 1 (2018).

References

External links

Interview
at the Archives of the

Imperial War Museum Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...

Shepperson's opening address at the "Chilembwe Revisited Symposium"
(

, 7 February 2015)
Profile
at Edinburgh University Library {{DEFAULTSORT:Shepperson, George 1922 births 2020 deaths Military personnel from Northamptonshire People educated at The King's School, Peterborough Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Academics of the University of Edinburgh People from Peterborough English Africanists Northamptonshire Regiment officers King's African Rifles officers English historians Historians of Malawi Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Historians of African Americans Historians of the British Empire Roosevelt University faculty Rhode Island College faculty University of Chicago faculty Academic staff of Makerere University Academic staff of the Dalhousie University

Early life and career

Selected publications

References

Further reading

External links