Background
Derek Bryceson was born on December 30, 1922, in China.
Derek Bryceson was born on December 30, 1922, in China.
Educated at St Paul’s School, London and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took a BA in Agriculture.
He joined the RAF at the age of 17 and in July 1942, on a reconnaissance mission over the Western Desert, was shot down by a Messcrschmitt. His wounds temporarily paralysed him and have left him dependent on sticks ever since.
He went to Kenya to farm in 1947 and moved to Tanzania in 1952, where he bought 1,200 acres at Ol Molog on the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro.
In 1956 he met Julius Nyerere, for the first time, initially reacting sharply against his advanced nationalist views, but after a series of meetings falling under the charm and idealistic sincerity of the young leader and finding much common political ground.
In 1957 he was appointed Assistant Minister for Social Services by the colonial government but he resigned to support the Tanganyika African National Union in the elections, winning a seat in the Northern Province.
A series of ministerial appointments followed: in July 1959 he became Minister for Mines and Commerce; in July 1960 Minister for Health and Labour; in 1962 for Agriculture; in 1964 for Health and in September 1965 until February 1972 Agriculture, once again.
It was in the Agriculture Ministry where he made his greatest contribution in a field that interested him passionately. He played a vital part in publicising and organising the Ujamaa movement of cooperative village development, a system of encouraging rural growth at the grass roots of Tanzanian society.
Appointed director of National Parks since mid-1972, he engaged in moving the Parks headquarters from the northern town of Arusha to Dar es Salaam.
A white settler who became a close friend of Julius Nyerere and played an important part in Tanzania’s independence movement. Dedicated, sincere and an enthusiastic Tanzanian, he spent more than a decade holding a succession of important ministerial portfolios. Speaking fluent Swahili, he stood as a white man before a largely African electorate on four separate occasions as a Tanganyika African National Union candidate. Twice he beat African opponents, winning the biggest majority in any of the country’s 120 constituencies at the last election.