There are certain books which, once noticed, demand to be taken down from the shelf: one such is ‘Pilkington of Uganda’ by Charles Forbes Harwood-Battersby (1898) George Lawrence Pilkington (born 1865) was a skilled linguist and fervent missionary, equally committed to Christianity and benefits of British colonialism. But it is not his mission which singles his biography out from the attic – it is the chapter titled ‘To Uganda By Bicycle’. It recounts Pilkington’s return journey to Uganda from the coast at Mombasa, a distance of some 700 miles. He travelled from mission to mission along an established route, starting in company but he soon rode off ahead. Extracts from his letters and journals tell the tale:
Friday, 27th November, 1896. Frere Town (Mombasa, Kenya)
I arrived, after a delightful voyage, on Wednesday. Goods, including bike, here, all right. We are really to start, it seems, to-morrow morning.
I rode up and down the road here on my bike. I propose to ride it where possible. There has been much rain lately, and so the dry part of road near the coast ought to be much better than usual.
Christmas Eve, 1896.
Here I am at Kikuyu, about a hundred miles, I suppose, ahead of our caravan.
I have come on very successfully, a few punctures, etc., and delays, and bad bits of road, but neither I nor the bike are any the worse; and now I am in this splendid healthy country.
Pilkington’s relentless optimism in this letter must be balanced by the details of the itinerary he recorded at journey’s end:
Sunday, 20th December. 57 and a half miles, only half the road rideable; arrived 5.30 p.m.
Monday, 21st. 10 miles, fearful road.
Tuesday, 22nd. 37 miles, fearful road.
Wednesday, 23rd. 47 miles, good road; 2 and a half hours delay owing to tyre; arrived 6 p.m.
Thursday, 24th. Rested.
Friday, 25th. [Christmas day] 47 miles, tyre broke down three times; should have been there 2 p.m., got there 5.30 p.m., having had to ride on deflated tyre.
Saturday,26th. Rested; failed to mend tyre.
Sunday, 27th. Went on with mail men, shoving bike 29 miles: hard work.
Monday, 28th. 30 miles through grass 5ft. high; fearful day.
Tuesday, 29th. 25 miles; bad road. Here Mr. Jackson with infinite kindness put on rope and rawhide on hind wheel as substitute for tyre, and gave me provisions for the road.
Wednesday, 30th.18 miles; bad road; had to shove bike nearly all the way.
Thursday, 31st. 24 miles; shoved bike nearly all the way, but in riding one very rough downhill piece cracked my seat pillar – not a very serious damage; when it breaks through, the longer bit of it will do very well. After getting into camp, had a nasty bit of fever, which lasted till I got here.
Friday, 1st January 1897. Came on here with some difficulty,16 miles, pushing my bike because of the cracked seat, which I propose to repair here with wire pro.tem.
Saturday, 2nd. Rested. Recovered from fever. So glad of a rest again.
Harwood-Battersby records Pilkington’s triumphant return: ‘The impression produced upon the missionaries in Mengo, by Pilkington’s sudden appearance among them, is thus described by Miss Chadwick:’
About half an hour before tea time I was in my room… when I heard a strange voice saluting the children down in the pathway below. A minute later Tabitha and some of the youngsters came up simply yelling Pilkingtoni! Pilkingtoni! ! and we at first declined flatly to believe them. How Mr. Pilkington, who, when we last heard, had not even arrived at the coast, should have passed and left the others behind, and arrived a month sooner than we expected even to see them, seemed incomprehensible; however, by the aid of his bicycle, he had done so, and arrived absolutely without an attendant, with nothing but a tiny knapsack.
The bike was repaired and continued to give good service. It outlasted Pilkington who was killed in action later that year helping to deal with a rebellious local chief: ‘Ninety per cent, of the people are probably with him in their sympathies, but, in the body, they prefer the side which musters most guns.’
The guns in question being breech loading rifles and machine guns. In what was his last letter to his mother, Pilkington described the fighting, then added:
It was some comfort to share a little of the danger the other day. I sometimes half wish that some of us Europeans had been killed, or at any rate wounded, if it weren’t for friends at home.
We, and the Country, and God’s work here, are all in His hands, and it’s all right.
He got his wish a few days later – a volunteer in a long-forgotten skirmish in the ‘Scramble for Africa’.
Harwood-Battersby’s biography came out a couple of years after Pilkington’s death. The handsomely embossed edition belonging to Bromley House bears this sticker:
THIS BOOK IS IN DEMAND
The committee have instructed the Librarian to cause the Fines to be strictly enforced for books retained beyond the time allowed.
And now it slumbers in the attic. Ca 3280.