George Goldie

Sir George Dashwood Taubman Goldie (20 May 1846 – 20 August 1925) was a Manx administrator who played a major role in the founding of Nigeria. In many ways, his role was similar to that of Cecil Rhodes elsewhere in Africa but he lacked Rhodes' thirst for publicity.

Born at The Nunnery, Douglas in the Isle of Man, the youngest son of Lieutenant Colonel John Taubman Goldie-Taubman, Speaker of the House of Keys, by his second wife Caroline Everina, daughter of John Eykyn Hovenden, a barrister of Hemingford Grey, Huntingdonshire. Sir George resumed his paternal name, Goldie, by Royal Licence in 1887.

He was educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and for about two years held a commission in the Royal Engineers. He married, in 1870, Matilda ('Maude') Catherine (died 1898), daughter of John William Elliott of Wakefield. He travelled in all parts of Africa, gaining an extensive knowledge of the continent, and first visited the country of the Niger in 1877.

He conceived the idea of adding to the British Empire the then little known regions of the lower and middle Niger, and for over twenty years his efforts were devoted to the realization of this conception. The method by which he determined to work was the revival of government by chartered companies within the empire, a method supposed to be buried with the British East India Company. The first step was to combine all British commercial interests in the Niger, and this he accomplished in 1879 when the United African Company was formed.

In 1881, Goldie sought a charter from Gladstone's government. Objections of various kinds were raised. To meet them the capital of the company (renamed the National African Company) was increased from £250,000 to £1,000,000, and great energy was displayed in founding stations on the Niger.

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