DIXON

See also:

• DIXON DENHAM (1786–1828.)
• DENHAM, SIR JOHN (1615—1669)

DENHAM (1786–1828.)  , English traveller in West Central Africa, was born in London on the 1st of January 1786 . He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, and was articled to a solicitor, but joined the army in 1811 . First in the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and afterwards in the 54th foot, he served in the campaigns in Portugal, Spain, France and Belgium, and received the Waterloo medal . In 1821 he volunteered to join Dr Oudney and Hugh Clapperton (q.v.), who had been sent by the-DENHAM British government via Tripoli to the central Sudan . He joined the expedition 'at Murzuk in Fezzan . Finding the promised escort not forthcoming, Denham, whose energy was boundless, started for England to complain of the " duplicity " of the pasha of Tripoli . The pasha, alarmed, sent messengers after him with promises to meet his demands . Denham, who had reached Marseilles, consented to return, the escort was forthcoming, and Murzuk was regained in November 1822 . Thence the expedition made its way across the Sahara to Bornu, reached in February 1823 . Here Denham, against the wish of Oudney and Clapperton, accompanied a slave-raiding expedition into the Mandara high-lands south of Bornu . The raiders were defeated, and Denham barely escaped with his life . When Oudney and Clapperton set out, December 1823, for the Hausa states, Denham remained behind .

He explored the western, south and south-eastern shores of

Lake Chad, and the lower courses of the rivers Waube, Logone and Shari . In August 1824, Clapperton having returned and Oudney being dead, Bornu was left on the return journey to Tripoli and England . In December 1826 Denham, promoted lieutenant-colonel, sailed for Sierra Leone as superintendent of liberated Africans . In 1828 he was appointed governor of Sierra Leone, but after administering the colony for five weeks died of fever at Freetown on the 8th of May 1828 . See Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa in the years 1822–1824 (London, 1826), the greater part of which is written by Denham; The Story of Africa, vol. i. chap. xiii . (London, 1892), by Dr Robert Brown .