Roy Bridges (historian)


Roy C Bridges is a noted historian the main focus of whose academic work has been the British institutions and personnel which were established in East Africa in the middle years of the nineteenth century. He is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Aberdeen where he taught from 1964 to 1997. Between 2002 to 2008 he was the President of the Hakluyt Society. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Historical Society.
His PhD thesis began his course of research into the identification and analysis of the British institutions which sent expeditions to East Africa from the period roughly 1840 to 1870. The thesis was concerned with the Royal Geographical Society, but the scope of his interest was soon extended to embrace missionary societies, British government representatives and the explorers themselves.
He also sought to analyse and discuss the nature of the interaction which took place between the newly-arriving British institutions and their personnel on the one hand, and the various indigenous peoples of East Africa on the other. It is this examination of the interaction and demonstration that the relationships were not as straightforward as previously assumed that may justify the claim to some academic and wider historical significance for the publications produced.

Full list of publications