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In 1954 a Nigerian man named L.S. arrived in the United Kingdom to study carpentry at the L.C.C. School of Building in Brixton.1 Within eight months of his arrival in the UK, L.S. suffered a mental breakdown. In April 1955 he was admitted to the Warlingham Park Hospital, having developed a ‘strong persecution mania’.2 Hospital attendants described him as ‘extremely depressed, agitated and unsure of his surrounding’. He claimed he was about to die and that he heard voices calling his name in his native language.3 With auditory hallucinations ongoing in a patient saddled with what his doctor termed ‘an inadequate and dependent personality’, his British doctors determined that it was ‘unwise to encourage his continued stay in this country’ and recommended that he return to Nigeria for further care.4 On 23 February 1956, L.S. sailed on the Elder Dempster ship Apapa, arriving in Lagos some twenty-one days later, repatriated under paid escort at the expense of the government of the United Kingdom. L.S.’s repatriation was not unique. Over the course of the British colonial era in Nigeria, which lasted from roughly 1900 to 1960, hundreds of immigrant Nigerians succumbed to mental disorders while living outside of Nigeria. Many dozens were repatriated as a result, supposedly in their own best interests to optimise their recovery. Repatriation of those deemed mentally ill was, however, a complicated process involving a variety of medical, governmental and corporate authorities, not least of which was the shipping firm of Elder Dempster & Company, which held a virtual monopoly over the carrying trade between the UK and its West African colonies for more or less the entirety of Nigeria’s colonial history. This chapter examines the relationship between Elder Dempster and the medical and governmental authorities within the British Empire. I argue here that this relationship represents an example of the importance of public-private cooperation

Elder Dempster and the transport of lunatics in British West Africa