Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4hhp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-17T04:35:26.841Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Remembering J. M. Stuart-Young of Onitsha, Colonial Nigeria: Memoirs, Obituaries and Names

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Stephanie Newell
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Colonial Onitsha provided the stage for John Moray Stuart-Young (1881–1939), a Manchester trader and poet, to perform the role of an educated gentleman. In his autobiographical writing, Stuart-Young created a host of famous metropolitan friends and constructed for himself a past through which he invited African readers to remember him. The extent to which Onitsha citizens accepted his version of his life is explored in this article, for during the period of Stuart-Young's residence in town, from approximately 1909 until his death in 1939, different sectors of Igbo society observed him closely, read his publications, worked with him and witnessed his patronage of young men. Local people, including the children, studied his behaviour over time and produced a range of African names and watchwords by which they remembered his life.

Résumé

L'Onitsha coloniale a servi de théâtre au rôle de gentleman cultivé qu'y a joué John Moray Stuart-Young (1881–1939), commerçant et poète de Manchester. Dans ses écrits autobiographiques, Stuart-Young s'est créé une foule d'amis métropolitains célèbres et construit un passé à travers lequel il invitait les lecteurs africains à se souvenir de lui. Cet article examine dans quelle mesure les citoyens d'Onitsha ont accepté cette version de sa vie; pendant la période où Stuart-Young résidait dans la ville (de 1909 environ jusqu’à sa mort en 1939), divers secteurs de la société igbo ont en effet pu l'observer de près, lu ses publications, travaillé avec lui et été témoins de son patronage de jeunes hommes. La population locale, y compris les enfants, a étudié son comportement au fil du temps et produit des noms africains et des expressions qui évoquent son souvenir.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 73 , Issue 4 , November 2003 , pp. 505 - 530
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Achebe, Chinua. 1972. ‘Uncle Ben's Choice’, in Chinua Achebe, , Girls at War, and Other Stories. London and Ibadan: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Achebe, Chinua. 1975. Morning Yet on Creation Day: essays. London and Ibadan: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Akosa, Chike. 1987. Heroes & Heroines of Onitsha. Onitsha: Etukokwu Press Ltd.Google Scholar
Aldrich, Robert. 2003. Colonialism and Homosexuality. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Azikiwe, Benjamin Nnamdi, . 1970. My Odyssey: an autobiography. London: C. Hurst.Google Scholar
Baker, Geoffrey L. 1996. Trade Winds on the Niger: the saga of the Royal Niger Company, 1930–1971. London and New York: Radcliffe Press.Google Scholar
Basden, G. T. [1921] 1966. Among the Ibos of Nigeria. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Bastian, Misty. 1998. ‘Mami Wata, Mr. White, and the sirens off Bar Beach: spirits and dangerous consumption in the Nigerian popular press’, in Heike Schmidt, andAlbert Wirz, (eds), Afrika und das Andere: Alterität und Innovation. Hamburg: Lit Verlag.Google Scholar
Bosah, S. I.c. 1984. Groundwork of the History and Culture of Onitsha. Onitsha: no publisher stated.Google Scholar
Bristow, Joseph. 1992. Empire Boys: adventures in a man's world. London: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Crossick, Geoffrey (ed.). 1977. The Lower Middle Class in Britain, 1870–1914. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Crossick, Geoffrey and Haupt, Heinz-Gerhard.1995. The Petite Bourgeoisie in Europe, 1780–1914: enterprise, farming and independence. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Arch Smith, Timothy. 1970. Love in Earnest: some notes on the lives and writings of English ‘Uranian’ poets from 1889 to 1930. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Drewal, Henry John. 1988. ‘Interpretation, invention, and re-presentation in the worship of Mami Wata’, Journal of Folklore Research 25 (1–2): 101–139.Google Scholar
Drewal, Henry John. 1996. ’Mami Wata shrines: exotica and the construction of self’, in Mary Jo Arnoldi, et al. (eds), African Material Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Duffield, Ian. 1967. ‘ The business activities of Duse Mohamed Ali: an example of the economic dimension of Pan-Africanism’, seminar paper at the Department of History, University of Ibadan, 28 April 1967.Google Scholar
Eakin, Paul John. 1999. How Our Lives Become Stories: making selves. Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ekejiuba, Felicia. 1967. ‘Omu Okwei, the Merchant Queen of Ossomari: a biographical sketch’, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 3 (4): 633–46.Google Scholar
Etukokwu, Chief Joseph Ubanyionwu . c.1997. Life Between Two Shrines: an autobiography. Onitsha: Etukokwu Publishers Ltd.Google Scholar
Gore, Charles and Nevadomsky, Joseph. 1997. ‘Practice and agency in Mammy Wata worship in southern Nigeria’, African Arts 3 (30): 60–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henderson, Richard N. 1972. The King in Every Man: evolutionary trends in Onitsha Ibo society and culture. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Hughes, Alex. 1999. Heterographies: sexual difference in French autobiography. Oxford and New York: Berg.Google Scholar
Hyam, Ronald. 1991. Empire and Sexuality: the British experience. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Jell-Bahlsen, Sabine. 1995. ‘The concept of Mammywater in Flora Nwapa's novels’, Research in African Literatures 2 (26): 30–9.Google Scholar
Killam, G. D. 1971. ‘John Moray Stuart-Young: the iniquitous coaster of Onitsha (Nigeria)’, Black Academy Review 2 (3): 22–41.Google Scholar
Lynn, Martin. 1997. Commerce and Economic Change in West Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mac Kenzie, John M. (ed.). 1986. Imperialism and Popular Culture. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Martin, Susan. 1988. Palm Oil and Protest: an economic history of the Ngwa region, south-eastern Nigeria, 1800–1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, Birgit. 1995. ‘“Delivered from the powers of darkness”: confessions of satanic riches in Christian Ghana’, Africa 65 (2): 236–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newell, Stephanie. 2002. Literary Culture in Colonial Ghana: ‘how to play the game of life’. Manchester and Indiana: Manchester University Press and Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Newell, Stephanie.forthcoming 2004. ‘Fragments of Oscar Wilde in colonial Nigeria’, English Literaturein Transition 47 (1).Google Scholar
Salmons, Jill. 1983. ‘Mammy Wata’, African Arts 10: 8–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sampson, Magnus J. 1937. Gold Coast Men of Affairs (Past and Present). London: Arthur H. Stockwell.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 1994. Tendencies. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinfield, Alan. 1994. The Wilde Century: effeminacy, Oscar Wilde, and the queer movement. London: Cassell.Google Scholar
Stuart- Young, J. M. 1905. Osrac the Self-Sufficient and Other Poems with a Memoir of the Late Oscar Wilde. Sunderland: Thomas Olman Todd.Google Scholar
Stuart- Young, J. M. 1912. Stories Bosu Told Me. No copy extant.Google Scholar
Stuart- Young, J. M. 1920. The Soul-Slayer. London: Arthur H. Stockwell.Google Scholar
Stuart- Young, J. M. 1926. Johnny Jones, Guttersnipe. London: The C. W. Daniel Company.Google Scholar