Career
Educated at the Royal Military College, Woolwich, he served for two years in the Royal Engineers. He traveled extensively in Africa, first visiting the country of the Niger in 1877. He conceived the idea of uniting all British interests there under a company called the United African Company (later the National African Company), and in 1886 he secured a charter forming it into the Royal Niger Company, with wide powers over much of what is now Nigeria. The company found vigorous opposition from the agents of both France and Germany, but it held its own with Goldie as governor from 1895 to 1900. In 1900 the British government purchased the lands of the company and formed the two protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria.