Norman Maclean Leys (1875 – 15 August 1944) was a British Africanist and critic of imperialism. He was described by his '' Manchester Guardian'' obituarist as "a fiery and determined prophet on colonial affairs, especially as he saw them in East Africa".'Obituary: Norman Leys', ''The Manchester Guardian'', 21 August 1944

Life

Norman Leys, born in Scotland, studied medicine at the

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, where he specialized in obstetrics. He became a medical officer in

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in 1904, and remained in the colonial service in Africa for their next sixteen years. Leys, whose Christian Socialism informed his belief in racial equality,John Saville, 'Britain: Internationalism and the Labour Movement between the wars', in F. L. van Holthoon & Marcel van der Linden, eds., ''Internationalism in the labour movement, 1830-1940'', Vol. 2., p. 572 became an outspoken critic of the way in which the arrival of white planters had impacted Africans. In 1920 he responded to the " Black Horror on the Rhine" campaign orchestrated by

E. D. Morel Edmund Dene Morel (born Georges Edmond Pierre Achille Morel Deville; 10 July 1873 – 12 November 1924) was a French-born British journalist, author, pacifist and politician. As a young official at the shipping company Elder Dempster, Morel ob ...

against the French use of African Troops in the occupation of the Rhineland. Whereas Morel had claimed that African troops were particularly prone to rape, Leys denied this—based on 17 years experience in tropical Africa—and further stated that such allegations constituted "one of the great sources of race hatred" and "should never be repeated by any honest man or honest newspaper". ''Kenya'' (1924), with an introduction by

Gilbert Murray George Gilbert Aimé Murray (2 January 1866 – 20 May 1957) was an Australian-born British classical scholar and public intellectual, with connections in many spheres. He was an outstanding scholar of the language and culture of Ancient Greece ...

, was reprinted in 1925 and 1926. Disappointed by the East African policies of the first and second Labour governments, Leys resigned from the Advisory Committee to the Labour Party in April 1931. In 1938, with

Leonard Barnes Leonard John Barnes MC and Bar (1895–1977) was a British anti-colonialist writer, journalist and educationalist.His archive papers are held bSOAS Special Collections/ref> Life Leonard Barnes was born in London on 21 July 1895. Educated at St ...

and Julius Lewin, he founded a socialist journal, ''Empire'', subsequently taken over by the Fabian Colonial Bureau. In February 1939 Leys drafted a memorandum for the Labour Party arguing against the colour bar: the memo was incorporated into a draft by

Leonard Woolf Leonard Sidney Woolf (; – ) was a British political theorist, author, publisher, and civil servant. He was married to author Virginia Woolf. As a member of the Labour Party and the Fabian Society, Woolf was an avid publisher of his own wo ...

which became an official Labour Party document in 1943. Leys died in Yalding, Kent on 15 August 1944. His correspondence with J. H. Oldham was published in 1976.''By Kenya Possessed: the correspondence of Norman Leys and J.H. Oldham, 1918-1926'', University of Chicago Press, 1976. Edited and with an introduction by John W. Cell.

Works

* ''A plan for government by mandate in Africa'', 1921 * ''Kenya'', 1924. With an introduction by

. * ''Why the landworker is poor'', 1925 * ''A last chance in Kenya'', 1931 * ''The Colour Bar in East Africa'', London: Hogarth Press, 1941

References

1875 births 1944 deaths British writers Anti-imperialism in Europe {{UK-writer-stub