The Genial Barons

Abstract

The early years of British rule in the Sudan were primarily devoted to establishing security, political administration and stabilising the economy. Military officers supervised the customs offices, police and prisons during the first decade of the twentieth century. Gradually, however, the civilian administrative officials replaced the military officers. The vast size of the Sudan combined with slow and difficult transportation encouraged a variety of ‘active and ingenious men, dropped into remote places’, to devise their own methods for governing the Sudanese. From 1900 to 1920 the central government struggled to standardise and finance these conflicting systems of administration in a diverse land with a contrast between North and South that remained an irreconcilable dilemma throughout the Condominium.¹ By 1914 the North was reasonably peaceful, even prosperous, but many of the Southern Sudanese still remained beyond the administrative control of the government in Khartoum while others continued to be embroiled in tribal disputes and outright resistance to British authority.

His day would start at dawn with a gentle awakening shake from his house-boy bringing him a cup of tea.

E. G. SArsfield-Hall