James Churchill Vaughan

James Churchill Omosanya Vaughan Jr., M.D. (30 May 1893 – 1937) was a Nigerian doctor and a prominent political activist.

James Churchill Vaughan Jr.
Born
James Churchill Omosanya Vaughan Jr.

(1893-05-30)30 May 1893
Lagos, Nigeria
Died1937 (aged 43–44)
Lagos, Nigeria
NationalityNigerian
EducationMB, ChB (1918)
Alma materUniversity of Glasgow
OccupationMedical Doctor
Known forPolitical activism

Birth and education

Vaughan was born in Lagos on 30 May 1893, the son of James Wilson Vaughan,[1][2] who descended from the 19th century American artisan Scipio Vaughan and through whom he also had Cherokee ancestry. His father was a prosperous Lagos Yoruba merchant.[3][4] He was among the first set of scholars at King's College, Lagos when it was founded in 1909.[5] Vaughan and Isaac Ladipo Oluwole were the two first Nigerian students at the University of Glasgow, studying medicine there from 1913 to 1918, when they graduated with medical degrees.[1] The two students were subject to racial prejudice. In the program for the final dinner in 1918, Vaughan was given an epithet after Robert Burns's "The Twa Dogs", likening him to a foreign born dog, "whalpit some place far abroad".[4]

Career

Returning to Nigeria in the early 1920s, Vaughan set up a private clinic.[6] He also provided free medical services for the destitute.[1] Vaughan attempted with little success to collate the works of the pioneering Nigerian doctor Oguntola Sapara, who had taken a special interest in traditional herbal medicines, but had left only fragmentary records of his researches.[7]

Vaughan became an outspoken critic of the British Colonial Administration, and in 1934 was one of the founders of the Lagos Youth Movement along with other leading activists including Dr Kofo Abayomi, Hezekiah Oladipo Davies, Ernest Sissei Ikoli, and Samuel Akinsanya.[8] Vaughan was the first president of the movement.[9] The Lagos Youth Movement originally had improvement of higher education as its goal, but within four years had become the most influential nationalist organization in the country. It was renamed the Nigerian Youth Movement in 1936 to emphasize its pan-Nigerian objectives.[10] One of the early issues was the curriculum of medical teaching at the Yaba Higher College.[11]

References
  1. "Biography of James Vaughan". University of Glasgow. Retrieved 17 May 2011.
  2. "University of Glasgow - MyGlasgow - Archive Services - Collections - International Archives - Africa - Nigeria". www.gla.ac.uk. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  3. Lisa A. Lindsay; John Wood Sweet (2013). Biography and the Black Atlantic (The Early Modern Americas). University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 203. ISBN 978-0-812-2087-02.
  4. Jane Starfield (2001). "A Dance with the Empire: Modiri Molema's Glasgow Years" (PDF). Vista University, Soweto. Retrieved 18 May 2011.
  5. "Blast From the Past". King's College Old Boy's Association. Archived from the original on 27 July 2011. Retrieved 18 May 2011.
  6. "University of Glasgow - MyGlasgow - Archive Services - Collections - International Archives - Africa - Nigeria". www.gla.ac.uk. Retrieved 30 May 2020.
  7. ADELOLA ADELOYE (1974). "SOME EARLY NIGERIAN DOCTORS AND THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO MODERN MEDICINE IN WEST AFRICA". Medical History. 18 (3): 275–93. doi:10.1017/s0025727300019621. PMC 1081580. PMID 4618303.
  8. Oscar Handlin, Lilian Handlin (1997). From the outer world. Harvard University Press. p. 146. ISBN 0-674-32640-7.
  9. Ayo Oyoze Baje Ayoze (7 October 2009). "Youths, Arise!". Daily Independent. Retrieved 18 May 2011.
  10. Toyin Falola, Matthew M. Heaton (2008). A history of Nigeria. Cambridge University Press. p. 141. ISBN 0-521-68157-X.
  11. Tom G. Forrest (1994). The advance of African capital: the growth of Nigerian private enterprise. University of Virginia Press. p. 73. ISBN 0-8139-1562-7.
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