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Shepperson Memorial

PROFESSOR GEORGE ‘SAM’ SHEPPERSON, WITH CAS SINCE ITS 1962
BEGINNINGS, PASSES AWAY.

Paul Nugent

The Centre of African Studies regrets to announce the passing of Professor
George ‘Sam’ Shepperson at the age of 98.
Sam joined the University in 1948 and held the William Robertson Chair in
History between 1963 and his retirement in 1986. When the Centre of African Studies
(CAS) was established in 1962, Sam played a crucial role in getting it off the ground
and defending its existence over the years. Sam’s secondment to the King’s African
Rifles, in East Africa and Burma, during the Second World War sparked a
longstanding academic interest and personal engagement with Central and East
Africa, especially Malawi. His most remarkable academic contribution was (with
Thomas Price) was Independent African, which is still regarded as a classic despite
being published as far back as 1958. Its account of the personal odyssey of John
Chilembwe, from pastor to the instigator of an armed insurrection in colonial
Nyasaland, provided a model for how to weave an intellectual biography around a tale
of international connectivity. It was an exemplar of Global History avant le mot. Sam
was arguably the first academic historian to really bridge African American and
African history, and inspired others to follow in his footsteps. He supervised
numerous doctoral projects on facets of Pan-Africanism, a number of which were
published and became foundational texts in their right. Although Sam experienced a
prolonged period of ill-health after his retirement in Peterborough, he was only too
happy to hold forth over the telephone and generously fielded requests for assistance
from researchers. The donation of most of his papers to the University of Edinburgh
collections has also left us with an unusual set of sources that cannot be found
anywhere else. In 2015, Sam was not able to attend the Edinburgh conference that
marked the centenary of Chilembwe rising. But a video link was arranged, and from
his contribution it is clear that he never stopped re-thinking this episode in Central
African history - to the point of actually suggesting that there had been too much of a
focus on Chilembwe to the neglect of other figures in the plot. 1n 1951, Sam
published a moving, and also very funny, account of his personal efforts to provide a
fitting burial for one Lance-Corporal Amidu - a Malawian soldier who lost his life in
an accident before the fighting even began [published in Phylon Vol. 12, No. 1 (1st
Qtr., 1951), pp. 55-64]. It would be nice to think that Sam and Amidu might be
reunited somewhere in the cosmos almost eight decades later.

Paul Nugent is Professor of Comparative African History (School of Social &
Political Science) and Emeritus Centre Director, Centre of African Studies,
University of Edinburgh.

Archive Images No: 9

“Always be prepared for the unexpected”.

George Shepperson’s clear favourite, and most often repeated, cautionary maxim.

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