Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Denham, Dixon
DENHAM, DIXON (1786–1828), lieutenant-colonel, African traveller, born in London 1 Jan. 1786, was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, where he was entered in 1793. He was afterwards articled to a London solicitor, but joined the army in the Peninsula in 1811 as a volunteer with the 23rd royal Welsh fusiliers. His buoyant temperament and gallant conduct made him a general favourite, and on 13 May 1812 he was appointed a second lieutenant in the corps, with which he made the subsequent campaigns in Portugal, Spain, and the south of France down to the peace, becoming a first lieutenant meanwhile in 1813. He distinguished himself at the battle of Toulouse by carrying Sir James Douglas, commanding a Portuguese brigade, out of fire when that officer had lost his leg. Transferred to the 54th foot, he served with that regiment in Belgium. The 54th was in reserve at Huy on 18 June 1815, but was held to have been constructively present in the battle, and although the latter was not inscribed on the colours, Denham, in common with the other officers and men, received the Waterloo medal. He afterwards served at Cambray and the occupation of Paris. Placed on half-pay in 1818, in consequence of the reductions, Denham travelled for a time in France and Italy, and in 1819 entered the senior department of the Royal Military College, where he attracted the favourable notice of the commandant, Sir Howard Douglas. After the death of Mr. Ritchie, of the consular service, who, under the auspices of the African Association, had been engaged in an attempt to reach Timbuctoo from the north coast, Denham offered to carry on the research. The offer was accepted, and Earl Bathurst sent him to join Dr. Oudney and Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton [q. v.], who already had started on the same expedition. Denham, who on 24 Oct. 1821 had purchased a company in the 3rd Buffs, was placed on (Irish) half-pay of that corps, and given the local rank of major in Africa from 24 Nov. 1821. Having reached Tripoli, he left that city 5 March 1822 to join Oudney and Clapperton at Memoon, thence proceeding to Sokna. He was the first Englishman to enter that town in European garb, and met with a better reception than if he had been in disguise. From Sokna he proceeded towards Murzuk, encountering a terrible sandstorm by the way. Finding the sultan unwilling to furnish him with an escort to Bornu, Denham left his friends, returned to Tripoli, accused the bashaw of duplicity, and started for Marseilles. Thereupon, he records, the bashaw sent three despatches after him, to Leghorn, to Malta, and to Marseilles, one of which reached him while in quarantine in the latter port, and stated that an escort had been detailed to conduct him to Bornu. Denham returned to Tripoli, and at the end of November 1822 set out for Bornu, came up with Oudney and Clapperton at Gatron, and thence proceeded to Teggri. Crossing the terrible Tebu Desert, strewn with the bodies of hundreds of black slaves who had perished on their way down from the interior, he reached Dherka 8 Jan. 1823, and was obliged to sanction a marauding expedition to steal camels, all his having perished in the desert. After being fifteen days without animal food, he reached Kuka, the capital of Bornu, 17 Feb. 1823, where he gained the confidence of the ruling sheikh. After a two months' sojourn at Kuka, he accompanied the Bornuese troops in an expedition against the Fellatah people, in which the former were put to utter rout, and Denham only escaped after encountering dangers and privations, his narrative of which reads like a frenzied dream (see Narrative, pp. 133, 136). Nevertheless, in company with Dr. Oudney, he joined another expedition, led by the sheikh in person, in which there was no fighting, after which he returned to Kuka, and stayed there until the end of the rainy season of 1823. In 1824 he obtained leave of the sheikh to visit the Loggun people with an escort, when he explored part of the shores of Lake Tchad, which he named Lake Waterloo, afterwards returning to Kuka. In March 1824 at Memoon he learned the death of Dr. Oudney, which had occurred at Murmur in January. On 25 Jan. 1825 Denham reached Tripoli on his homeward journey, charged with presents from the sheikh of Bornu to the king of England. In company with Captain Clapperton, he landed in England 1 June 1825. He at once became the object of public notice, which increased after the publication of the narrative of his travels and sufferings. Earl Bathurst frequently invited him to his table, and to show the high sense entertained of his energy and intelligence, he was offered a new and experimental appointment at Sierra Leone, that of superintendent of liberated Africans on the West Coast. Denham, who meanwhile had been promoted to a majority 17th foot, was given an unattached lieutenant-colonelcy on 14 Nov. 1826, started for his post in December following, and reached Sierra Leone in January 1827. He spent some months surveying the neighbourhood of Free Town, and towards the end of the year started on a visit of inspection to Fernando Po, during which he received from Richard Lander the tidings of the death of Captain Clapperton, which he was the first to transmit to Europe. In May 1828 Denham returned to Free Town, where he received the royal warrant appointing him lieutenant-governor of the colony of Sierra Leone. He died there of African fever, after a short illness, 8 May 1828.
Denham published the account of his African travels, under the title, ‘Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa,’ London, 1826, 4to. The work, which went through several editions, has numerous illustrations from sketches by the author, together with an ‘Appendix of Natural History,’ and other notes. The following paper, entered under his name in ‘Catalogue of Scientific Papers,’ vol. ii., appears not to be included in the foregoing: ‘Bull. Sc. Nat. viii. (1826), 289–91: Denham, Dixon, Description de trois nouveaux Espèces de Coquilles Fluviatiles trouvées dans la rivière Yaou.’
[War Office Records; Georgian Era, iii. 75 et seq., where is a good abstract of Denham's Travels in Africa; Denham's Narrative; Cat. Scientific Papers.]