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The Society of Malaŵi Journal

THE EXTERNAL EXAMINER: A REMINISCENCE

Melvin E. Page

In the early 1970s I was a complete neophyte to both Africa and fulltime
university teaching, and as such I was unfamiliar with the concept of an external
examiner. Thus, near the end of my first year as a Fulbright History lecturer at
Chancellor College, the news that George Shepperson would soon arrive as our
external examiner brought mixed emotions. Though at first eager to make the
acquaintance of a renowned scholar whose writings served as a pathway into my own
research, I was soon nearly overcome with trepidation that the distinguished Professor
of Commonwealth and American History would be assessing not only my students but
also my teaching. However, my initial reaction was the one which came to dominate
my interactions with the genial Professor. In fact, during the decades since—
sometimes directly and at others more indirectly—George Shepperson has remained a
kindly lodestar of sorts, offering a means of externally examining my own efforts as a
historian.
Once he arrived at our Chichiri campus, Professor Shepperson was especially
eager to review the examination papers from my United States History course, a new
curricular offering inserted into the Chancellor College curriculum coinciding with my
U. S. Information Agency sponsored appointment. Our several conversations during
his brief tenure as examiner mostly focused on the many intersections of Africa with
United States history. At the time I was just beginning to refocus my research interests
on Malawi and the First World War, and Shepperson enthusiastically encouraged me in
that pursuit. He explicitly reminded me of his injunction, made a decade before, that
1
even World War Two “did not hit Africans with the same force as the 1914 war.” As
he did for so many younger scholars, he also offered a few specific research
suggestions which forearmed me as I launched into that project a few months later.
Fortuitously, George returned to Malawi on a similar mission two years later
when I was completing my tenure at Chancellor College. I excitedly wrote my father
that I had a “distinguished historian staying” in my house in Zomba for two weeks, “a
Prof. George Shepperson from Edinburgh Univ.” During his stay, I had occasion to
host a private discussion with four of the most significant scholars then writing about
Malawi and central African history—Matthew Schoffeleers, Terrance Ranger, Bridglal
Pachai, and of course, Shepperson himself. That evening was one of the high points of
my final weeks in Malawi and, though I didn’t realize it at the time, those two weeks
laid the foundation for a professional friendship which lasted for decades. When I was
able to write him just weeks later that, almost unexpectedly, I’d at last received
permission to consult public records in the Malawi National Archives, Shepperson
quickly replied “I am delighted … to learn that every dark cloud has a silver lining!”
and invited me to contact him once I arrived in London on my way back to the United
States.
I did so, making Edinburgh one of my research stops. I’d booked lodgings for a
short stay on the city’s edge, and he insisted on meeting me there—then guiding me on
a nearly day-long walking tour of the city, ending at his university office where I’d
first suggested we meet. There I glimpsed part of the “great Sheppersonian archive” of
which he was so proud, resolving to take similar care when amassing my own research
materials. Having done so has been an unexpected boon in my retirement, not only

1 George A. Shepperson. "External Factors in the Development of African Nationalism, with Particular Reference to
British Central Africa." Phylon 22, (1961): 207-25. Accessed May 21, 2020. doi:10.2307/274193.
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