John Kirkham (adventurer)

John Charles Kirkham (c.1835 – June 1876) was a British adventurer, hotelier and ship's steward who fought with William Walker in Nicaragua and Charles George Gordon in China during the Taiping Rebellion before landing in Ethiopia at the beginning of the British campaign against Emperor Tewodros II in 1868. At the conclusion of the latter campaign, Kirkham stayed in the country and became the main Western advisor to Emperor Yohannes IV. He was instrumental in training Ethiopian troops to Western military standards, raising and drilling what became known as the Emperor's Disciplined Force.

Kirkham's troops played a major role in the defeat of the 1871 invasion of Tigray by Yohannes's rival for the Ethiopian crown, Wagshum Gobeze (Tekle Giyorgis II), fighting with conspicuous success in the Battle of Adwa on 11 July. Thereafter Kirkham was sent by Yohannes on a diplomatic mission to Europe to help attract recognition and support for his imperial regime. He visited London and possibly also Paris and Vienna on the Emperor's behalf, returning via Massawa in February 1873.

In recognition of Kirkham's abilities and services, Yohannes promoted his advisor – who had once kept a hotel at Tientsin and had arrived in the country as a ship's steward with the P&O Line – to the rank of general and gave him a substantial estate at Asmara, then in the province of Tigray, and near the Egyptian frontier. Kirkham was later made governor of that province.

Kirkham's men fought again during the invasion of Ethiopia by Egypt that began in October 1875. They played a part in an initial skirmish at Kesad-Ikka, but Kirkham was late arriving at the critical Battle of Gundet next day (16 November 1875). This battle saw the decisive defeat of the Egyptian army commanded by the Danish adventurer Colonel Arrendrup by Yohannes's general Ras Alula Engida. Kirkham's failure to reach the battle site in time to take part in the fighting cost him much of his prestige, some Ethiopian officers describing him as "an old woman" for his dilatoriness.

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