Dixon Denham

Dixon Denham (January 1, 1786 – May 8, 1828) was an English explorer in West Central Africa.

Denham was born in London. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, and was articled to a solicitor, but joined the army in 1811. Initially in the 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers, and later the 54th Foot, Denham served in the campaigns in Portugal, Spain, France and Belgium, and received the Waterloo Medal and ultimately, as a lieutenant, becoming an instructor at Sandhurst. In 1822 Denham had been engaged in an attempt to travel from Tripoli to Timbuctoo, and was diverted to a British government expedition to establish trade links with the west African states, intending to join Dr Walter Oudney and Lt. Hugh Clapperton, at Murzuk, in Fezzan, where they had been stranded since early in the year.

Arriving in Tripoli to find the promised escort to Murzuk 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 of 210 mounted Arab tribesmen forthcoming, Denham reached Murzuk in November 1822, finding his two compatriots in a wretched condition, Clapperton ill of an ague, and Oudney with a severe cold. Nevertheless, the expedition started on the 29th November, and made its way due south across the Sahara reaching Kuka in the Bornu Empire, (now Kokawa, Nigeria) on 17 February 1823.

It was from Kuka that Denham, against the wish of Oudney and Clapperton, accompanied a slave-raiding expedition into the Mandara Mountains south of Bornu. The raiders were defeated, and Denham barely escaped with his life. By this time, a deep antipathy had developed between Clapperton and Denham, Denham at one stage openly accusing Clapperton of having homosexual relations with one of the Arab servants. The accusation was almost certainly unfounded, leading the historian Bovill to write that "it remains difficult to recall in all the checkered (sic) history of geographic discovery.... a more odious man than Dixon Denham".

When Oudney and Clapperton set out for the Hausa states in December 1823, Denham remained behind to explore the western, south and south-eastern shores of Lake Chad, and the lower courses of the rivers Waube, Logone and Shari, proving beyond doubt that Lake Chad was not the source of the Niger, as had been widely believed. During this time Oudney died, and Clapperton returned to Kuka barely recognizable after his privations. In August 1824, Denham left Kuka alone for the return journey to Tripoli and England; Clapperton followed in January 1825. Denham's trans-Sahara exploits are briefly mentioned in Jules Verne's Five Weeks in a Balloon. In June 1826 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

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.