The Dilemma of Rhodes Scholarships – Remembering African and Caribbean Students At British Universities

The death of Eldred Jones reported in The Guardian today reminds us of the many students from Africa and the Caribbean and who studied at British Universities.

www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/30/eldred-jones-obituary

Jones obtained his BA at Christi Corpus College in Oxford. Becoming a literary scholar and critic his Othello’s Countrymen: English Renaissance Drama was published in 1965, He went to work at Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone, which was linked with Durham University. In 1974 he became principal of the College. In 2002 he was made at honorary fellow at Corpus Christi.  

Many other students studied at Oxford on Rhodes Scholarships. A debate between former Jamaican Rhodes scholars on the proposed removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College emphasises the need for Rhodes scholars to continue ‘to be agents of change, fighting against racism and other forms of justice in their home countries.’

www.loopjamaica.com/content/jamaican-rhodes-scholars-share-mixed-views-rhodes-must-fall

This is a useful reminder that history and legacy are complex.

Since it started in the early 20thC the Cecil Rhodes scholarship programme has supported many students of African heritage at Oxford.

Alain LeRoy Locke, of the later Harlem Renaissance, was the first  African American Rhodes Scholar in 1907 (see Jeffrey’s Green’s website). There were then none until 1962 with John Wideman.  

https://aaregistry.org/story/the-rhodes-scholarship-and-african-america

https://goodblacknews.org/tag/african-american-rhodes-scholars

There had been previous Black students at Oxford, the first Christian Cole graduating  in 1876 and becoming the first black African to practice law in English courts from 1883. He was celebrated with a plaque at University College in 2017, thanks to the work of Pamela Roberts, director of the project Black Oxford: Untold Stories (www.blackoxford.net).

Time is ripe to give a higher profile about the black graduates at Oxford and other Universities, whether Rhodes Scholars or not.

At Oxford these included Edward Nelson of British Guiana who had held office in Oxford Union debating society (see Jeffrey Green’s website), Frank Dove (see Stephen Bourne’s Black Poppies), Norman Manley (Rhodes and Royal Field Artillery, First World War, Jamaican Prime Minister), Malcolm Joseph-Mitchell (League of Coloured Peoples), Rex Nettleford (scholar and choreographer), and Eric Anthony Abrahams (President of the Oxford Union 1964-5).

There was also Grantley Adams, who became Prime Minister of Barbados. He won a Rhodes scholarship and started at Oxford in 1919. His friends there included Noel ‘Crab’ Nethersole (later Jamaica’s Minister of Finance), Erskine Ward (later Speaker of the West Indies Federation House of Representatives), the Bajan H. A. M. Beckles (later academic), the Nigerian Jibowu who became a Judge, and Sidney Van Sertima from British Guiana who became a barrister). Adams also met the Bajan Principal of Wycliffe Hall (Church of England theology college) Rev. H. B . Gooding (Rhodes 1906).

The internet is full of material, including press and video interviews with more recent Rhodes scholars

There were African and Caribbean students at other universities like at Edinburgh including Charles Duncan O’Neal (1899-1904), who was a doctor on Tyne and Wear before returning home, and John Alcindor, who became a GP in Paddington, whose biography by Jeffrey Green awaits publication. Born in Jamaica the playwright Barry Reckord studied at Cambridge University in the 1950s. Edward Kamau Brathwaite was at Cambridge and then Sussex Universities.

I have been discussing with academics at Durham the history of its links awarding degrees to African students at Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone, and some students who came to study at Durham, like H. A. M. Beckles before going to Oxford, and George (Coleridge- Taylor.

Not all Rhodes scholars from the Caribbean came to Britain. Richard Dayton went from Barbados to Harvard. He is now Rhodes Professor of Imperial History at Kings College London.

Every University should be researching its historic engagement with black students. If there are proposals for statues then men like John Alcindor should be high on the list. Plaques could be put up on buildings associated with them as students.

Note: My father was a Rhodes Scholar from Canada in the 1930s.