Durham to Freetown: How a British University Shaped Sierra Leone’s Leaders, Railways, and Press | Fantasy History

At University College, Durham University, one of the most remarkable things Harry Evans did apart from studying economics and politics was editing the university's newspaper, the Palatinate.

The term is also historically used to describe the area administered by a count palatine, that is, a high-ranking noble who had special royal powers granted directly by the sovereign.

Henry Josiah Lightfoot Boston, who was the first Sierra Leonean to become Governor-General of Sierra Leone, had a direct personal connection with Durham University in the field of education.

Situated in Freetown, Sierra Leone, this institution was established in 1827 as the first Western-style university in West Africa. From 1876 until 1967, Fourah Bay College was officially linked with Durham University, which enabled its students to obtain recognized British degrees.

Lightfoot Boston studied at Fourah Bay College before going on to continue his studies at Durham University, and he later served as Governor-General from 1962 to 1967.

Although he was not a governor general, Sierra Leone's first Prime Minister obtained his degree from Fourah Bay College and graduated as a medical doctor from the Durham College of Medicine in 1926.

West African graduates received Durham University degrees mainly through Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone, which had a formal degree-awarding association with Durham from 1876 to 1967. The students in Freetown, Sierra Leone, studied arts, theology, or science and sat for the same examination papers, which were sent directly from Durham.

Fourah Bay College drew scholars from the British West African colonies, including Nigeria, the Gold Coast (Ghana), Gambia, and Sierra Leone. Those who passed the examinations were awarded recognized qualifications from Durham University, thus making higher education available in the region before independent universities in West Africa were set up.

A large number of future political leaders, educators, and professionals from the independence period completed their initial academic training under this shared curriculum during the mid-20th century. The consistent production of Durham-affiliated degrees from Freetown provided the basis for Fourah Bay College's eventual transition into an independent university in the late 1960s.

When Evans first met Alhusine Deen on the campus of Durham University, they discussed the Second World War years and national service. 

Evans also famously told a story that his father, who was an engine driver, had once told him.

The story was about the British-made trains and locomotives sent to Sierra Leone from the late 19th century under colonial rule to build the Sierra Leone Government Railway, the first railway system in British West Africa.

The railway was started by the British colonial government in 1896 at Cline Town in Freetown and reached Pendembu by 1908. The locomotives and rolling stock were manufactured by well-known British engineering companies, including the Hunslet Engine Company and Hudswell, Clarke Ltd. of Leeds, Beyer, Peacock & Co. of Manchester, as well as other builders in Yorkshire.

Separately, when Sierra Leone gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1961, the British government donated the country 45 new passenger coaches.

The narrow-gauge network became unprofitable and deteriorated, and it was officially closed in 1975. Many of the historic British-built engines and carriages survived the country's later civil war and are now preserved at the Sierra Leone National Railway Museum in Freetown.

Evans, and Deen, who worked at The Sierra Leone Daily Mail before joining the civil service, also had a great deal to say about the newspaper published in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

The paper began to operate around 1930. In the mid-20th century, it was one of the most well-known newspapers in West Africa, much like other regional papers during both the colonial and post-independence periods.

Evans graduated from University College, Durham, in 1952 and then worked as a sub-editor at the Manchester Evening News; the International Press Institute selected him to teach newspaper techniques in India. After returning to the UK from the United States, he became an assistant editor at the Manchester Evening News.

When Evans was appointed editor of The Northern Echo in 1961, he sent Deen a congratulatory note, as Deen was one of the Sierra Leoneans who took up vacant civil service positions in Sierra Leone after the African nation's independence in April 1961. 

By 1963, Deen was acting as a student attaché at the Sierra Leone High Commission in the United Kingdom. 

While working at the Darlington paper, Evans met Deen a few times in London at the Sierra Leone High Commission. 

Deen left his expat post for a new role at the rice agency in Sierra Leone by 1966, when Evans moved to London to become assistant editor of The Sunday Times and then editor of The Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981, and editor of its sister publication, The Times, for a year in 1981.

Evans and Deen remained in touch over the years, exchanging scribbled notes through the staff of the British High Commission or via British expats that Deen occasionally met at the famous City Hotel in Freetown, the backdrop of Graham Greene's novels. 

When Evans published his book Good Times, Bad Times, he sent Deen a signed copy in Sierra Leone. The inside page stated: "To the Honorable Member of Parliament, a fellow newspaperman."

In the autumn of 1985, unbeknownst to Evans and Deen, their twentysomething daughters met by chance in a call center above a satellite office of The Economist on the corner of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street.