WARQNAH ISHETE
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Warqnah Ishete (October 22, 1865-19?), a statesman, author, and Ethiopia’s first modern-trained physician, was a progressive influence in education, health, and economic development in the early part of the 20th century, and was appointed as the Ethiopian ambassador in London at the time of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. In Ethiopia he was known as Hakim (“Doctor”) Warqnah. Abroad, he was known as Dr. Charles W. Martin.
PHOTO CAPTION: Warqnah Ishete. SOURCE: EA Library.
He was born in Gondar, and was taken to the fortress of Magdala, where his parents were confined by Emperor Téwodros II [reigned 1855-68]. He was only four when the fortress was captured by the British expedition of 1868. His family fled, leaving him behind. The British soldiers took him to India. He was educated by two British officers, Charles Chamberlain and Colonel Martin, and was christened Charles Martin, after the latter. Graduating at Lahore Medical College in 1882, he was appointed as assistant surgeon in the British medical service in India in 1887, and went to Scotland for further studies at Edinburgh University in 1889. He became a medical officer in Burma in 1891.
On learning of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1895, Dr. Charles Martin tried to return home, but failed. When Emperor Menilek II [reigned1889- 1913] heard of this, he arranged with the British to permit Martin to come to Addis Ababa in 1899, where he found his family and discovered his real name, Ishete Warqnah. He remained in Addis Ababa until February 1902 before returning to Burma and the British medical service, but urged Menilek to establish modern schools in Ethiopia. Again in 1908 he returned to Addis Ababa as temporary medical officer in the British legation. He treated the emperor during his fatal illness, after which he returned to Burma in 1913.
When Tafari Makonnen, later to become Emperor Haile Selassie [reigned 1930-1974], became regent in 1916, Wargnah resigned from the British service, and returned home in 1919. He undertook medical work, ran farms and flour mills, developed mineral springs, founded schools for girls, headed the school for freed slaves in 1925, and from 1925-30 served as the first director of the regent’s principal school.
In 1927 he went to the United States to obtain support for the construction of a projected dam on Lake Tana and later went to India to recruit teachers. He wrote an Amharic geography book, and was appointed governor of Charchar in 1930, and later of Danakil province in 1933, where he built roads and established farms, plantations, and a dispensary. He was the Ethiopian minister to England in 1935 at the time of the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, and did much to interpret Ethiopia’s position to Britain and to the world. He spent the later years of the Italian occupation of 1935-41 in India, but returned home after the liberation as an elder statesman.
RICHARD PANKHURST
