Robert Edward Codrington

Robert Edward Codrington (6 January 1869 – 16 December 1908) was the colonial Administrator of the two territories ruled by the British South Africa Company (BSAC) which became present-day Zambia.

[2] Codrington was born in the United Kingdom into a Gloucestershire family with a background of service in the Royal Navy, but instead he went to southern Africa and joined the Bechuanaland Border Police in 1890.

He rose rapidly through the colonial ranks and as a result of his military experience he was given the job of conquering the Ngoni and Yao by force and stamping out the last vestiges of the slave trade in the area.

[2] He was a practical man and he solved the shortage of British people in the territory available to run the administration by appointing Africans educated by the Scottish missionaries in Nyasaland.

In this way he helped support education generally and establish a group of Nyasaland African administrators (though he kept them subordinate to the whites) who were influential there and in Northern Rhodesia.