A. R. Colquhoun

Archibald Ross Colquhoun (/kəˈhuːn/ kə-HOON; March 1848 – 18 December 1914) was a British explorer[1] and the first Administrator of Southern Rhodesia. He held office from October 1890 until September 1892, the period of the founding of Fort Salisbury (now Harare) after the arrival of the Pioneer Column. At this time the administrator's jurisdiction covered Mashonaland only, as Matabeleland was annexed in 1893. He was also acting Chief Magistrate of Southern Rhodesia between 24 July 1891 and 18 September 1891.

A.R. Colquhoun
Colquhoun in 1882
1st Administrator of Southern Rhodesia
In office
1 October 1890 – 10 September 1892
MonarchQueen Victoria
Preceded byOffice created
Succeeded byLeander Starr Jameson
Personal details
Born
Archibald Ross Colquhoun

March 1848
Cape Town, Cape Colony
Died18 December 1914 (1914-12-19) (aged 66)
NationalityBritish
SpouseEthel Maud Cookson

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, Indo-China and southern China, for which he was awarded the 1884 Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society.[2]

He left for South Africa in 1889. After his term of office as Administrator in Southern Rhodesia he settled in the United Kingdom, but continued to travel. From 1900–1901, he and his new wife Ethel travelled in the Pacific —the Dutch East Indies, Borneo, Philippines, Japan — returning to England via Siberia. From 1902 to 1903, he travelled in the West Indies, Central America and the United States. During 1904 and 1905, he returned temporarily to Rhodesia.

In 1913, Colquhoun inspected the Panama Canal construction work and carried out one last mission for the Royal Colonial Institute in South America before his death on 18 December 1914.[3]

Family

Colquhoun married at St. Paul′s church, Stafford, on 8 March 1900 to Ethel Maud Cookson (1874–1950), eldest daughter of Samuel Cookson, of Forebridge, Stafford.[4] 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
  1. "Walled off". The New Yorker. 4 December 2006.
  2. "List of Past Gold Medal Winners" (PDF). Royal Geographical Society. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 24 August 2015.
  3. Who was who, Vol 1, 1897–1916, p. 150.
  4. "Marriages". The Times. No. 36087. London. 12 March 1900. p. 1.

Bibliography

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 [nee Ethel Colquhoun] and the Making of White Rhodesia". Journal of Southern African Studies. 23 (2). JSTOR 2637621.

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