George Wilson, CB (of the civil division), (13 May 1862 – 12 December 1943), also known as bwana tayari ("Mr. Ready") among natives in East Africa, was a general staff employee of the Imperial British East Africa Company (1890–1891).
Wilson served as Chief Lieutenant to then-Captain Sir Frederick D. Lugard from 1889 to 1890, and was second in command during Lugard's caravan expedition to Uganda on 6 August 1890. This expedition included 120 Swahilis, nine Persian transport attendants/agriculturalists, and four other Europeans besides Wilson himself. The Europeans were Fenwick De Winton, William Grant, and Archibald Brown.
In 1894, Wilson joined the Uganda Service/government. His first task was to establish a 'native baraza' or council, which he structured as a native administration. He presided over all government matters alongside the Kabaka. He was in civil charge of the Protectorate during the outbreak of the Sudanese mutiny. He was later appointed First Class Transport Officer and First Class Assistant of the Uganda Protectorate on 30 August 1894.
Wilson served as the Sub-Commissioner of the Buganda Kingdom in 1895, and later as Her Britannic Majesty's Acting Commissioner and Commander-in-Chief of the Uganda Protectorate and Consul-General from 5 November 1897 to 29 January 1898. He was awarded the C.B. (Companion of the Order of the Bath) on 2 January 1899 and became an honorary corresponding secretary and non-resident fellow of the Royal Colonial Institute in 1899.
Wilson was the first Chief Collector for the Bunyoro district (August 1900 – 17 November 1901). He was responsible for drawing up the 1901 Ankole Agreement and presenting it to the Ankole chiefs and people. This agreement was signed with the approval of the Ankole, the colonial administration, and the UK Government in Whitehall, with Wilson as the protectorate's Chief Negotiator.
Later, Wilson became Deputy Commissioner of the Uganda Protectorate at Entebbe, Government House (1 April 1902 – 1904), and Deputy Governor of the Protectorate (2 December 1907 – 1 March 1909). He also served as His Majesty's Commander-in-Chief and Acting Commissioner of the Uganda Protectorate in 1904–1906 and again from 27 April 1907 to November 1907. Wilson was a fellow at the Royal Society of Arts and received a silver medal on 28 June 1907.
Early life George Wilson was born in 1862 in Glasgow, Scotland, as the eldest of nine siblings. His father, George Wilson (senior), was a sculptor, while his mother, Jane Leslie, was primarily involved in household duties. At the age of five, George was relocated to Australia, where he grew up in a rough environment.
Wilson later became a music hall entertainer. After discovering a coal mine, he became a working director in Australia and led a regiment he had raised. However, his leadership faced challenges, and his marriage became unstable. In 1888, he embarked on a journey to East Africa as a missionary with his brother, Charles Wilson, and about a year later, he was discovered by an official of the IBEAC.
Exploration of East Africa and British colonial service
According to the diaries of Lord Lugard, George Wilson was working with and teaching ex-slaves (whom he helped free) and coastal tribes near Mombasa in January 1889. He was primarily engaged in assisting the missions with fugitive slaves from their Arab masters. Wilson spent at least five months in Fuladoyo, a runaway slave settlement in coastal Kenya, engaged in this work. By 20 December 1889, he joined Lugard's first expedition from Mombasa to Machakos.
Under Lugard's strong persuasion to IBEAC director Mackenzie, Wilson was offered a job by the company, which he joined on 1 January 1890. However, Wilson soon became ill with fever, a condition that persisted throughout the first expedition. This was not the first time Wilson had fallen ill, as he had previously become sick while working in East Africa with his brother the year prior.
Wilson later joined Lugard's second expedition on 6 August 1890, embarking on the Sabaki trip. Lugard's caravan left the coast at Malindi and slowly moved up the Sabaki River. After crossing the Tsavo River, they encountered a Swahili caravan transporting slaves. The traders fled but were later caught by Lugard and placed on trial in Mombasa. Some of the slaves were successfully freed, with malnourished children receiving food and clothing. Between 1890 and 1897, one-third of all slaves in East Africa were reportedly freed by officers of the IBEAC and the 1895 protectorate government, according to Sir Arthur Henry Hardinge, who estimated that at least 26,259 legal slaves (a massive undercount that did not include those living in runaway mission settlements or areas outside their home villages) were held by Muslims in 1897.
By 12 September 1890, on Lugard's second expedition, Wilson's health had deteriorated to the point of losing consciousness. Suffering from constant health challenges along the journey and having a weak pulse, Lugard acted quickly by taking Wilson to his tent and using natural medicine, like rubbing him with carbolic oil, to revive him. Whiskey was given to ease the pain, but his health continued to decline. Lugard nursed Wilson day and night, ultimately saving his life.
From various accounts, George Wilson was determined to join Lugard's Uganda expedition in 1890. Lugard held a high opinion of Wilson, praising his success with the Kikuyu and crediting him for teaching valuable lessons in interactions with locals. In August 1891, Wilson was engaged by James Stewart. For a time, Wilson was involved with the Scottish Industrial Mission at Kibwezi and worked on taking control of Fort Dagoretti on 19 September 1891.
In August 1892, on his way back to the coast, Lugard found Wilson at work on the Mackinnon Road, being built by the Mission from Mazeras to Kibwezi. This road, funded by Sir William Mackinnon, was aimed at increasing trade with Uganda. Wilson employed the WaKamba for the 185-mile road construction between Tsavo and Kibwezi, paying them one brass wire ring per day, equivalent to 4 annas.
Following Mackinnon's death, Wilson completed 110 miles of the road and reached 174 miles by 1894.
Wilson joined the Uganda service on 30 August 1894, quickly making his mark as officer in charge of Kampala station. His leadership was recognized, and he was placed in charge of the protectorate region during the Sudanese Mutiny in September 1897.
John Dawson Ainsworth's memoirs recount how Wilson was ambushed by the Wa-Kikuyu under Waiyaki Wa Hinga's command for over a week. This forced Wilson and his men to vacate Fort Dagoretti at night and retreat to Machakos on 30 March 1891 under the advice of Ernest Gedge, along with 30 African soldiers. This marked the first major confrontation between the Agikuyu and British imperial forces. Wilson, praised by both the Kikuyu and the British, did not return to the region, but the Kikuyu regarded him as a leader who maintained the locals' respect.
Wilson was left at the fort by Lugard due to further health setbacks. This led Lugard to make the difficult decision to leave him at a station in Dagoretti with a garrison of thirty men while the rest of the expedition moved forward. Wilson's health, however, improved rapidly in the "cold, bracing air of the mountains," as Lugard claims in his book, The Rise of Our East African Empire.
According to Maina wa Kinyatti, a Marxist historian, the defeat at Dagoretti, along with another successive defeat for Wilson and his men, prevented them from sustaining the attacks led by Waiyaki Wa Hinga. Following the recapture and rebuilding of the station at Dagoretti, they lost control of the previously burned garrison during a dash for safety back to Machakos, where their headquarters was built by Lugard in 1889. This ultimately led to Wilson's replacement by Colonel Erick Smith, who refocused his efforts on building another fort in Kanyonyo, which he later named "Fort Smith."
On the other hand, when Wilson, who had only barely recovered from his sabaki trip with Captain Lugard, was in charge of the fort that he and Lugard built to near completion in October 1890, he was tasked with finishing it off. However, he could not, along with his 40 porters and askaris, defend against the Kikuyu to remain in the station. He was running out of ammunition and supplies and did not receive any new stock from the coast that was sent to him following Lugard's departure in November 1890. According to multiple accounts, including one from Lugard, he was unfairly dismissed by the IBEA Company for abandoning the station. The company blamed his ambush on the mistreatment of natives.
Even though Wilson and several officials maintained that the company was responsible for the failure due to the lack of assistance even after a request was sent, other accounts from people who met George Wilson, like John Walter Gregory, claim that he was persuaded to retire from his IBEA post by the leaders of a caravan returning from Uganda following the failed project, rather than being abruptly dismissed. This stands in stark contrast to the statement made by the IBEAC's Mackinnon. In a letter to Stewart on 27 October 1891, Mackinnon wrote that Wilson had "failed to conciliate the natives."
Meanwhile, in 1923, Brigadier-General Austin gave his account of what transpired when he was a witness at Fort Smith in 1890. He narrated that hostilities had emerged between the Wa-kikuyu and company officials when Wa Hinga murdered two of Wilson's porters who had gone to his village to buy food for the garrison. Day by day, the number of those killed and wounded in the ensuing Waiyaki besiegement of the company post at Dagoretti increased.
It is hard to find one isolating factor that led to the Kikuyus' besieging of the Dagoretti fort against Wilson and his men, especially considering that Wilson initially struck a positive friendship with the Agikuyu. However, one suggestion from Evanson Wamagatta, an associate professor and author at Biola University, is that days after Lugard left for Uganda, his men and officials at Dagoretti did not honour the IBEA agreement and the blood-brotherhood that Lugard made with the Waikikuyu and its leader Waiyaki. What followed was the forcible recruitment of the Kikuyu as porters, the purposeful theft of food from the Kikuyu, local squabbles between IBEA officials and Kikuyu residents, harassment and sexual assault of Kikuyu women, and the failure to pay the Kikuyu for supplying and delivering food to George Wilson.
Nonetheless, despite his frictional encounters in the first three years of engaging with the natives via IBEA, George's long-term career was not damaged. Furthermore, he was eager and patient when it came to dealing with the natives. He could speak several local languages, having learnt to speak Swahili and Masai from two of his African wives. He had spent a significant period working as an administrator in the Nile province, anxious but determined to push for administrative expansion into the North East. He was known as a good judge of character, earning the nickname bwana tayari, an official who knew the country better than anyone else.
By 30 August 1894, George Wilson was appointed as the first-class transport officer and later as the first-class assistant of the Uganda protectorate. From 31 January 1895, he served as a sub-commissioner of the Buganda Kingdom and was the principal British official in Buganda at the time. From 5 November 1897 to 29 January 1898, Wilson was the acting commissioner and commander-in-chief of the Uganda Protectorate, as well as the consul-general in the absence of Colonel Ternan.