R.A.J. Maguire

R.A.J. Maguire
File:Maguire, R.A.J..jpg
Residence	c/o The Secretariat Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika Territory
Society Membership membership ordinary fellow elected_AI 1931.01.13 societies Royal African Society

Notes

House Notes

1930.12.16 proposed by G.H. Orde Browne, seconded by H. Balfour

Notes From Elsewhere

[may not be relevant]: Our teacher was Bobby Maguire, a former member of the colonial administration, always smartly turned out, with a military bearing and moustache, and an extensive knowledge of the East African coast and of the language. He was a genial and hospitable man who invited us more than once to his home. He and his wife lived in a comfortable old stone and oak-beamed cottage in the middle of the village of Thame with a long and beautiful garden where we much enjoyed his hospitality. ..... Happily we discovered that Mr Maguire, our Oxford Swahili teacher, was in Tanga too. He had flown out to spend some time in the country during the summer vacation in order to brush up his knowledge of the language before the next ‘Devonshire Course’. [District Officer in Tanganyika: the memoirs of Dick Eberlie: part II]

in charge of our Swahili tuition was Robbie Maguire, a retired Provincial Commissioner from Tanganyika, silver haired and silver tongued; he was a spellbinder, each lesson carried along on a tide of anecdote, usually relevant and invariably entertaining. Explaining a particular construction he would relate how once, on safari, he was out shooting for the pot. As he walked up to the carcass of a shot antelope a figure appeared from nowhere, and reaching the dead beast a few yards ahead, observed with approval ‘ Itanitoshea’ - it will suffice me. Abdullah, his Zanzibari assistant, thought the Maguire technique rather frivolous, and favoured the more traditional method of learning by rote and repetition.

Not a natural linguist, my own progress was further retarded by a preoccupation with persuading Sylvia Perry – partner at a summer ball the previous term, and secretary to the Professor of Zoology – to abandon all prospects of a safe, secure and comfortable life in England, marry me, and come to Tanganyika. Towards the end of our year’s training Robbie Maguire invited his class to tea on the lawn of his country home near Abingdon. In an informal valedictory speech he offered a final bit of advice; ‘Do not for Heaven’s sake think about marriage until you have done two or three years in the country’. It was good advice, and well meant. Afterwards, a little sheepishly, I confessed that a wedding was planned for the following month. [An affair with Africa: tanganyika remembered by Don Barton]

Publications

External Publications

Tanganyika Notes and Records

The Masai penal code