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The Society of Malaŵi Journal

PROFESSOR GEORGE (SAM) SHEPPERSON
A MILITARY MEMORIAL

Ross Anderson

Professor George ‘Sam’ Shepperson CBE is a resounding name in Malawian
history and, while sadly I never had the privilege of meeting him, I certainly learned
much from his books and articles. Although he is best known for his academic work
and writing, his wartime experiences as an officer in the King’s African Rifles (KAR)
th
was a formative and lasting experience. Indeed, it was his service with the 13
(Nyasaland) Battalion (13 (NY) KAR) that really introduced him to Africa and piqued
his interest in its peoples and history. 1 While he went on to achieve renown and
international acclaim as a historian, I will leave those aspects to others and will
instead focus on his time as a soldier, but through the lens of Nyasaland / Malawian
askari (soldiers) of the KAR.
George Shepperson was perhaps an unlikely Army officer as he was born in
1922 to a working-class family in the then rural village of Paston, outside of
Peterborough. His father Albert was an engineer’s fitter and a staunch Labour Party
supporter, and his mother Joyce (née Cooper) ran the household. He was clearly a
serious student as he progressed from the Lincoln Road Boys School to the
prestigious The King’s (The Cathedral) Grammar School in Peterborough. He did
very well there, gaining his Sixth Form Higher School Certificate in History, French,
Latin and English which led to his acceptance as an Exhibitioner at St John’s College,
Cambridge in 1940. During Year One, he read English, gaining a First, which then
won him a Scholarship for Year Two where he attained First Class Honours in the
English Tripos, Part I. Graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in 1942 under the special
wartime two-year degree programme, his academic studies were temporarily curtailed
by military service during the Second World War. He would return to complete
Historical Tripos, Part II in 1947, gaining his Master of Arts and First Class
2
Certificate of Education the following year.
However, his military service began in 1939, whilst still a schoolboy in
Peterborough, when he volunteered for the Paston Branch, Local Defence Volunteers
(later the Home Guard). While on the Left politically, he believed that Fascism was a
genuine threat and wanted to play his part. He remembered very sketchy training,
firing a total of five rounds from his rifle on the local range, conducting route
marching and attending church parades. Most of his activities consisted of early
morning patrols around the countryside, looking for German parachutists and
potential infiltrators.
He continued his service at Cambridge, joining the University Officers’
Training Corps, undergoing military training alongside his academic studies. After his
graduation, he was called-up for National Service and was sent to Wrotham in Kent
for six weeks of concentrated military training for graduates. This was followed by a
further six months at the Officer Cadet Training Unit, in Douglas, Isle of Man from
October 1942 to April 1943. Sam, as he was nick-named in the Army, remembered

1 We are very fortunate as we can hear Sam tell his own story in an oral interview conducted by the Imperial War
Museum in Shepperson, George Albert ‘Sam’ (Oral History), Catalogue Number 19666 on 14 September 1999.
The link may be listened to on-line at https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80018705
2 Who was Who: Shepperson, Prof. George Albert, 1 December 2019.
st
https://doi-org.ezproxy2.londonlibrary.co.uk/10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U34669
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