Lugard, Frederick John Dealtry Lugard, 1st Baron [key], 1858–1945, British colonial administrator. After an early military career, he entered (1889) the service of the British East Africa Company and was sent (1890) to Uganda. After securing British predominance in the area he returned (1892) to England and was instrumental in persuading the British government to assume (1894) a protectorate over Uganda. Appointed British commissioner for N Nigeria, he created the West African Frontier Force in 1897 and by 1903 had subdued N Nigeria. Lugard was governor of all Nigeria from 1912 to 1919, welding its diverse territories into a single administrative unit. He developed the doctrine of indirect rule, which Great Britain employed in many of its African colonies. According to his views the colonial administration should exercise its control of the subject population through traditional native institutions. Lugard expounded his theory in The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (1922). He was raised to the peerage in 1928.
See biography by M. Perham (2 vol., 1956; repr. 1968).
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