Sir Geoffrey Francis Archer KCMG (4 July 1882 – 1 May 1964) was an English ornithologist, big game hunter and colonial official.

In the Sudan, Archer paid a formal but friendly visit to Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, son of the self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad, whose forces had killed General Gordon in 1885.

Archer was eventually forced to resign due to the resultant flap, and spent the remainder of his career organising salt works in India.

He visited Lake Albert, the Semliki valley and the Rwenzori Mountains, discovering over twenty species and subspecies that had been previously unknown to science.

By mid-February, Somaliland Camel Corps troops, assisted by the King's African Rifles, rounded up the remaining Dervish forces.

They broke loose at a reception held at the British residency and almost caught the pet stork that belonged to General Edmund Allenby, the high commissioner.

This policy was proposed to raise much needed revenues to run the Somaliland Protectorate which was a net drain on Colonial Office coffers.

In the ensuing disturbances a shootout between the British and Burao residents broke out, Captain Allan Gibb, a Somaliland Campaign veteran and district commissioner, was shot and killed after the Camel Corps refused to fire on the rioters.

[15] After the incendiary bombardment and destruction of Burao, the leaders of the rebellion acquiesced, agreeing to pay a fine in livestock for Gibbs death but refused to identify and apprehend the individuals guilty.

In light of the failure to peacefully implement taxation Governor Archer abandoned the policy altogether being a victory for the Somalis in the Protectorate.

However, due to doubts that the local Ugandans could handle higher education the establishment at Makerere Hill in Kampala only gave training for low-level clerical work.

Brilliance in debate can hardly equal the initial advantage gained in youth by having led in the field a body of well trained and disciplined young men of similar age".

[29] When Archer reached Khartoum in January 1925 he landed in frogged uniform, with sword and plumes, to be greeted on the quay by the members of his council in business suits.

[31] One of Archer's early decisions was to initiate the formation of the Sudan Defence Force, with a command completely separate from the Egyptian army.

[31] During Archer's tenure the main concern of the government was to reduce the power of the local intelligentsia and to transfer greater authority to traditional rulers.

[33] However, he deferred to Lord Lloyd, the British High Commissioner for Egypt and the Sudan, who stated in a memo to the Foreign Office that "on political, educational, religious, and administrative grounds it is desirable that Arabic as a general language should disappear from the Southern provinces".

[34] Archer was enthusiastic about the massive scheme to dam the Blue Nile at Sennar so as to irrigate the Gezira plain for cotton cultivation.

[3] Archer made significant contributions to the study of birds and their breeding and migration habits in British East Africa, while considering a professional career as a big-game hunter.

[3][4] In Uganda, Archer sought to employ indigenous residents for higher level clerical work so as to lessen the British administration's dependence on Indians for such activity.

[38] A young man who met Archer in 1939 said of him: "When I talk to him I experience the feeling one gets when one walks out of a very stuffy room full of tobacco smoke into the open air and is greeted by a heavy buffeting wind, which pushes one back a step but which exhilarates and invigorates.