Papers of Professor John D Fage

Research papers [1940s] of John Fage on the development of Southern Rhodesia (presumably for his PhD), largely covering the period from the 1890s to the 1930s, comprising notes, largely manuscript but including some typescripts, of primary and secondary sources including official sources, among them British parliamentary papers, Colonial Office correspondence, records of the Executive and Legislative Councils of Southern Rhodesia and its High Court, also including a bibliography. The subjects include pre-history, geography and geology, colonial administration, the British South Africa Company, economics, indigenous affairs, labour, and land tenure.

Born, 1921; educated at Tonbridge School; attended Magdalene College, Cambridge (Scholar, MA, PhD); Bye-Fellow, Magdalene College, Cambridge, 1947-1949; Lecturer and Senior Lecturer, University College of the Gold Coast, 1949-1955; Professor of History, 1955-1959; Deputy Principal, 1957-1959; Lecturer in African History, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1959-1963; Professor of African History, University of Birmingham, 1963-1984; Director, Centre of West African Studies, 1963-1982; Deputy Dean, Faculty of Arts, 1973-1975; Dean, 1975-1978; Pro-Vice­Chancellor, 1979-1984; Vice­Principal 1981-1984; Emeritus Professor of History; Fellow of the Royal Historical Society; Honorary Fellow, School of Oriental and African Studies. Publications include: 'The achievement of self-government in southern Rhodesia, 1898-1923' (PhD thesis, 1949); An atlas of African history (1958); with Roland Oliver, A short history of Africa (1962); edited Africa discovers her past (1970); edited, with Roland Oliver, Papers on African Prehistory (1970); A history of Africa (1978); edited The Cambridge history of Africa, vol 2 (1978); Black Africa in time-perspective: four talks on wide historical themes, ed P E H Hair (1990); and other publications relating to West Africa and African history. With Roland Oliver, edited the Journal of African History, 1960-1973, and joint general editor of The Cambridge History of Africa (8 vols, 1975-1986).

Arranged in four files.

Open

These papers were donated by Professor John Fage in 1988.

The School of Oriental and African Studies also holds an undated two-page typescript by J D Fage, 'An Historian's (or Archaeologist's) Brief Guide to Lexicostatistics (or Glottochronology)', among the papers of Malcolm Guthrie (Ref: PP MS 27 Box 27).