African Survey

An African Survey: A Study of Problems arising in Africa South of the Sahara, often simply known as African Survey, was a report published in 1938 which paved the way for the reorganisation of research into the situation of the British Empire in Sub-Saharan Africa through the Colonial Development and Welfare Act 1940. The report was published by Oxford University Press and ran to 1,837 pages. It was subsequently republished in several revised editions.

The missionary Joseph Oldham played a key role in getting the survey under way. John Cell has argued that reference to Jan Smuts in Lord Lothian's foreword to the work should not be given much weight. Smuts had advocated White settlement throughout the highlands of East Africa, with a view of creating a similar dominion to South Africa. This proposal, centred on Oxford University lost out to other viewpoints. In 1931 Oldham got an agreement for the survey to be funded from the Carnegie Foundation, however a suitable director would have to be found. Three people declined the role, William Marris, George Schuster and Whitney Shephardson before the two year search was over. Lionel Curtis, a friend of Lord Hailey sounded him out and he was soon seen as an ideal candidate for the role. Hailey formally accepted the role in July 1933

As director for the Survey and it established Hailey as a leading voice calling for colonial reform in the 1940s. Hailey had retired from a career in British India and whilst it was officially claimed he would bring "fresh eyes" to Britain's African territories, it has also been suggested that there was a hope that a similar method of controlling separate African territories could be established as had been done in India. He was aided by Lucy Mair and Audrey Richards, both anthropology students of Bronisław Malinowski, who were seconded to the Colonial Office; E. B. Worthington, a Cambridge biologist who assisted with a scientific survey; and Hilda Matheson, who was hired as a secretary to the project, but ended up serving more as an executive manager of the endeavor.

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