John Roscoe
John Roscoe (1861–1932) was an Anglican missionary in East Africa who also collected information about the people he met for study. He was born in 1861 during the Victorian era and began his career as a civil engineer before joining the Anglican Church Missionary Society.
In 1884 he went on a mission to the area that would become the Uganda Protectorate and lived there among several African tribes until 1909. From these years he wrote Twenty-Five Years in East Africa, published in 1921, hoping it would be a helpful reference for Britons.
Roscoe’s career followed the path of the explorer David Livingstone and was influenced by him. He was more pragmatic about saving Africa than Livingstone, reflecting Britain’s established presence in Africa at the time. He respected Livingstone’s work in exposing slavery and built on his ideas about how to approach the continent.
Like Livingstone, Roscoe believed Christianity could benefit the Africans, and he also argued that the scientific study of Africa was important.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 17:02 (CET).