KIRKHAM, JOHN C.
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John C. Kirkham (?-1875) was a British military adviser to Emperor Yohannes IV [reigned 1872-89].
Kirkham had fought in the Nicaraguan Civil War of 1855-57, had been a steward with the British Pacific and Oriental (P. & O.) Steamship Company had served in China in 1863-64 under the British general Charles George Gordon (1833-85), and was employed by Sir Robert (later Lord) Napier, leader of the British expedition of 1868 against Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia, to purchase cattle at Annesley Bay (now Zula) on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea. He held the rank of sergeant.
At the end of the 1868 campaign he entered the service of Kassa, the future Emperor Yohannes IV, who gave him the rank of colonel. He trained Kassa’s troops, and enabled them to defeat Gobazé, a rival for the throne, at the battle of Adwa on July 11, 1871. The Englishman was then entrusted with training 2,000 troops, but “could never keep them steadily at drill for any length of time, as the men said they would rather be put to death at once than work so hard.”
When the Egyptians threatened to invade Ethiopia in 1873, Kirkham was sent to Europe by the emperor with letters to Queen Victoria and other sovereigns, asking for assistance. He also defended Ethiopia in a letter to the London Times. The European powers, however, were not interested in helping Ethiopia so his mission achieved little.
Yohannes continued to hold Kirkham in esteem, made him a general, and gave him a large estate. After an invading Egyptian force, which had landed at Massawa and marched inland, had been defeated by the Ethiopians at Gundet in 1875. Kirkham was made responsible for the return of the Egyptian prisoners, whom he sent back to the port of Massawa. He himself later arrived there on his way to Britain on a second mission, but was imprisoned by the Egyptians, and died shortly afterwards of dysentery.
RICHARD PANKHURST
