Richard Turnbull (colonial administrator)

Sir Richard Gordon Turnbull, GCMG was a British colonial governor and the last governor of the British mandate of Tanganyika from 1958 to 1961. Following the country's independence, he was governor-general from 9 December 1961 to 9 December 1962.

Biography

Richard Gordon Turnbull was born in St Albans, Hertfordshire, and educated at University College School in Hampstead, University College London and Magdalene College, Cambridge. In 1931, he entered the Colonial Administrative Service in Kenya as a cadet, before working for nearly two decades as a district officer. He was then a provincial commander before becoming Minister for Internal Security and Defence in 1954. A year later, he was appointed chief secretary of Kenya, assuming his role during the midst of the Mau Mau rebellion. In 1958, he succeeded Edward Twining as governor of Tanganyika. Following the first elections to the Legislative Council, Turnbull appointed five members of Julius Nyerere's Tanganyika African National Union party. At the end of 1961, Tanganyika became independent with Nyerere as prime minister and Turnbull as governor-general. He served for a year until Tanganyika became a republic in December 1962. He later became the penultimate High Commissioner of Aden in 1965.