Workneh Eshete

Hakim Workneh Eshete (also known as Charles Martin; 21 October 1864 – 9 October 1952) was the first Ethiopian educated as a medical doctor, and an Ethiopian intellectual. He led the Ethiopian diplomatic mission to the United States in 1927, which negotiated a contract to build a dam on the upper Abay River; and, beginning in 1934, he served as Ethiopia's Minister to the United Kingdom.

Workneh was born in Gondar, the son of Negadras Eshete Woldemariam. Nagadras Eshete had been forced to join Emperor Tewodros II in his retreat to Magdala, where the emperor made his final stand against the invading British soldiers in 1868. In the confusion that followed the capture of Magdala, Workneh was separated from his parents and found by the British soldiers alongside Alemayehu Tewodros, weeping over the Emperor's body. Assuming he was an orphan, Workneh was taken under the protection of Colonel Charles Chamberlain. According to Bahru Zewde, Colonel Chamberlain took him to Aden where he was made the ward of another colonel, Charles Martin, who brought to India, where Workneh attended the mission schools at Rawalpindi and Amritsar.Richard Pankhurst, however, presents another version of events in Workeneh's life after leaving Ethiopia: Colonel Chamberlain brought Workneh to his home in Rawalpindi, serving as his guardian until his death in 1871, after which Workneh was dispatched to the mission school at Armistar where Colonel Martin paid for his education. In both versions of the story, Workneh was grateful enough to Colonel Martin's interest in him that he took the Colonel's surname as his own; similarly he adopted the given name of Colonel Chamberlain and thus took the name "Charles Martin".

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