JOHN ELLIS LAVERS

1936 1993 A wide circle of friends and colleagues were shocked and deeply saddened by the untimely death of John Lavers in Kano on 16 May this year. John was born on 22 July 1936, the only child of George and Irene Lavers. He was educated at St Roans School, Greenwich, London and did his National Service with the British army Royal Medical Corps, seeing action (at least in the technical sense) during the Suez Crisis in Port Said. Following his military service he enrolled at University College, London where he graduated with a B.Sc. in Anthropology, 1962. He followed this with an M.Sc. in Anthropology, also at the University of London in 1964, the title of his dissertation being The Organisation and Distribution of Trade in the Central Sudan in the PreColonial Period. Shortly after this he went out to Nigeria and it was there that I first met him and began a friendship that lasted until his death. He came out to Nigeria to work on the history of Bornu for his doctorate. It was one of the regrets of his friends (but not necessarily himself) that he never wrote the thesis, but kept it all stored in his encyclopaedic mind. With the doctoral project effectively abandoned, he settled down in Nigeria marrrying and making his home in Kano for almost thirty years. With or without a Ph.D., however, there was no doubt of the quality of Johns mind and the enviable breadth of his knowledge of Bornu and Hausa history. He was appointed Assistant Lecturer in History at Abdullahi Bayero College 1966, became Reader in History at what had long since become Bayero University in 1982, and Professor of History at the same institution in 1987. For John, history was not a career or even a vocation; it was a passion. Every time one met him he would almost immediately begin to tell, with a twinkle of enthusiasm in his eye, of some new source he had discovered, some new historical puzzle he had found a solution to, or expatiate on the work of a students working under his supervision. He always preferred talking to writing, and though it was not an easy task to get a letter out of Sudanic Africa, iv, 1993, 1-6

JOHN E. LAVERS

him, he always gave generously of his time to friends and colleagues who could track him down in Kano or London and, above all, to his graduate students. This may be witnessed in the many acknowledgements to him in footnotes and in the monumental theses produced by his students, the MAs among which would pass as Ph.D.s anywhere else. At first glance John looks not to have been a prolific writer. However, if he preferred talking to writing, he preferred writing to publishing. Perhaps less than half of what he wrote had actually been published by the time of his death. Below, I have attempted to list his writings, published and unpublished, but there are certainly gaps. If readers have others to add, we will gladly publish a supplement. Among his other enduring achievements was the setting up of a splendid permanent exhibition at the Gidan Makama Museum, Kano and the preparation of a guide to the Museum. During the summer of 1992 he completely re-wrote the guide with extensive historical commentary and by the time this notice appears it will no doubt have been published. John stayed on, unlike many of us who sought greener pastures in Europe or the USA after serving in Nigerian universities in the 1960s and 1970s, and he was admired for doing so. Not only was he at home there, with his wife Hajiya Baba and his children, Adam, Sulaiman and Aisha, but he loved the challenge of working in the field and with the younger generation of scholars to whom the history he studied truly belonged. We shall all miss his enthusiasm and his kindness, no less than the bubbling sense of humour (inspired by BBC radio comedy shows of the 1950s) which made it difficult for him to utter two sentences without a pun or other jeu de mots. Our condolences go to his widow and children and to his mother who is still living in south London. John Hunwick Writings The list has been compiled partly from a CV of Johns located by Murray Last at Bayero University and partly from my own records and the records of colleagues. No systematic attempt has

WRITINGS PUBLISHED AND UNPUBLISHED

been made to locate reviews he wrote or articles in non-academic journals or newspapers. 1966 The western marches of Bornu: a preliminary survey. Unpublished paper presented to the 12th Annual Congress of the Historical Society of Nigeria. 1967 Jibril Gaini: a preliminary account of the career of a Mahdist leader in north-eastern Nigeria. Research Bulletin [Centre of Arabic Documentation], 3, i, 16-39. 1967 The early life of Rabih b. Fadlallah, ca. 1845-1893. Unpublished paper presented to the 13th Annual Congress of the Historical Society of Nigeria. 1967 Rabih b. Fadlallah. Chapter for a book, ed. John R. Willis, to be entitled Islamic Leaders in West Africa. 11 pp. This does not appear to have been published. 1968 Rabih in Bornu (Bornu and its neighbours in the years 1893-1900). Unpublished paper presented to the 14th Annual Congress of the Historical Society of Nigeria. 14 pp. 1968 The Adventures of a Kano pilgrim, 1892-93. K a n o Studies, 1, iv, 69-78. 1970 Warfare in the Borno caliphate. Unpublished paper presented to the 16th Annual Congress of the Nigerian Historical Society. 1971 Islam in the Bornu Caliphate. Odu (new series), 5, 27-53. 1972 The history and peoples of Fika emirate. New Nigerian, 22 December. 1972 Burnt brick sites in the Borno caliphate. Proceedings of the IVth Congress of West African Archaeologists, Jos. This does not appear to have been actually published. 1975 The Awlad Rabih, 22 April 1900-23 August 1901. Postgraduate Seminar paper [Department of History, Bayero University], 12 May. 1976 Introduction to the history of Bagirmi, c. 1500-1800. Seminar paper, Department of History, Bayero University College, 15 November. 27 pp., table and map. Publ. in Annals of Borno, 1, 1983, 29-42. 1977 Battles and skirmishes: Rabihs invasion and occupation of Borno 1893-1894. Postgraduate Seminar paper [De-

JOHN E. LAVERS

1977 1977

1979 1979 1979

1979

1980 1980 1981 1984

1984

partment of History, Bayero University], 1 February. 53 pp. El Kanemi. Le cheikh restaurateur du pouvoir au Bornou in Ch.A. Julien (ed.), Les Africains. Paris, VII, 49-71. A late eighteenth century description of the Phellata Arabs of Adar. Proceedings of the Fulfulde Conference, Centre for Nigerian Languages, Bayero University, Kano. Apparently never published. Fezzan: Sudanic or Saharan State. Unpublished paper. 42 pp., 2 maps. Trans-Saharan trade before 1800: towards quantification. Paper presented to the Post-Graduate Seminar, Department of History, Bayero University, 11 December. The diplomatic relations of the Sokoto Caliphate: some thoughts and a plea in Yusufu Bala Usman (ed.), Studies in the History of the Sokoto Caliphate. Zaria: Ahmadu Bello University Press for the Sokoto State History Bureau, 379-91. Diversions on a journey, or the travels of Shaykh Ahmed al-Yamani (1630-1712) from Halfaya to Fez in Yusuf Fadl Hasan & Paul Doornbos (eds.), The Central Bild alSdn: Tradition and Adaption. Khartoum: Khartoum University Press, 216-32. A note on the terms Hausa and Afuno. Kano Studies (n.s.), 2, i, 113-20. Kanem and Borno to 1808 in Obaro Ikime (ed.), Groundwork of Nigerian History. Ibadan, 187-209. The walls of Kano City. History Today, liv, 3, (March 1981), 54-6. Biography, the Ulama and an example of protest in eighteenth century Borno. Paper presented to the conference on Islam in Africa: the Changing Role of the Ulama, Northwestern University, March. 6 pp. Popular Islam and unpopular dissent. Religious disturbances in northern Nigeria. Unpublished paper presented to the conference on Popular Islam in Africa south of the Sahara, University of Illinois, Urbana, April. 6 pp., Postscript, 2 pp. & Appendixes 1 and 2.

WRITINGS PUBLISHED AND UNPUBLISHED

1985 A note on Chad studies in Nigeria. Paper presented to the Colloque sur la rgion du Tchad, ORSTOM-LATAH/ CNRS-LACIT, Paris, September. 1985 Kanem and Borno under three dynasties. Some aspects of change and development, c. 700-1900 AD in Bashir Ikara and J. F. Ade Ajayi (eds.), Political Culture in Nigeria. Ibadan: Universities Press Ltd. & Kaduna State Council for Arts and Culture, 18-32. 1985 Contributions to Historical Atlas of Africa, ed. J.F.A. Ajayi & Michael Crowder. London: Longman: Map 32 TransSaharan Trade c. 200-1900, Map 36 States of the Central Sudan, 1500-1800, Map 46 The Sahara and Central Sudan in the Nineteenth Century, Map 58 Conquest and Resistance in the Central Sudan. 1987 Two Sufi communities in seventeenth and eighteenth century Borno. Paper presented to the Workshop on Sufism in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Africa. School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 17-18 September. 1991 Review of Jean-Paul Lebeuf and Johannes Immo Kirsch, Ouara, ville perdue. Sudanic Africa, 2, 183-8. 1992 R.C. Abraham: the Bolewa and the Bolanci in Philip J. Jaggar (ed.), Papers in Honour of R.C. Abraham (18901963) [African Language and Culture, Supplement 1]. School of Oriental & African Studies, London, 29-36. 1992 [with Philip J. Jaggar] Roy Clive Abraham in Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 6. 1992 Adventures in the chronology of the states of the Chad Basin. This was scheduled for publication, but the place of publication has not been discovered. 1992 Guide to the Gidan Makama Museum, Kano. The 1985 edition did not bear his name as compiler, but the new revised one was planned to be published under his name. It is not known whether or not it has yet appeared, but is was completed in summer 1992. Year Unknown [with B.M. Barkindo] Some thoughts on the processes of state formation in the Nigerian area in O.

JOHN E. LAVERS

Ikime (ed.), Handbook for the Teaching of Nigerian History. Ibadan: Historical Society of Nigeria [Not located].

JOHN E. LAVERS: WRITINGS: ADDENDA

I have received the following additional information to the Bibliography of the writings of John E. Lavers, published in SAJHS, 4, 1993, 2-6: The Awlad Rabih, 22 April 190023 August 1901 in Paideuma, xl, 1994, The Sokoto Caliphate and the European Powers, 1890-1907, ed. A.S. Kanya-Forstner and Paul E, Lovejoy, 215-42 [listed in Writings as unpublished paper, 1975] Trans-Saharan Trade before 1800: towards quantification in same, 243-78 [listed in Writings as unpublished paper, 1979] This issue of Paideuma is dedicated to the memory of John Lavers. The al-Kanimiyyin Shehus: a working chronology in Proceedings, International SymposiumSFB 268Frankfurt/ Main, 16.12.-19.12.1992, Berichte des Sonderforschungsbereiches 268 Kulturentwicllung und Sprachgeschichte im Naturraum Westafrikaische Savanne, Bd. 2: 179-86, Frankfurt. There is an obituary by Philip Jagger in Frankfurter Afrikanistische Bltter, 5, 1993, 3. (Information provided by Jrg Adelberger) joh

Sudanic Africa, vi, 1995, 183