Walter Plowden

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Use dmy dates Template:Short description

File:Plowden.jpg
Plowden's grave, Gondar

Walter Charles Metcalf Chichele Plowden (3 August 1820 – 13 March 1860)[1] was a British diplomat, consul at Massawa on the Red Sea coast from 1848 to his death. He played a role in Ethiopian politics in the mid 19th-century: during his tenure he cultivated the friendship of first Ras Ali, and later the Ethiopian emperor Tewodros II.

J. R. Hooker remarks that "as a political agent, Plowden was valuable; as a writer of travel literature he was engaging and intelligent; but as a consul he was useless, his commercial reports being limited to three in 1852. He was never at his post after 1855."[2]

In 1860, Plowden was murdered aged 39 during a journey between Gondar and the Red Sea by a follower of Agew Niguse, a warlord hostile to Tewodros. Plowden was interred in the Royal Enclosure, next to the Gemjabet Mariyam church. His writings were published as Travels in Abyssinia and the Galla Country, with an account of a mission to Ras Ali in 1848 by his brother in London in 1868.[3]

References

<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />

  1. Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  2. Hooker, "The Foreign Office and the 'Abyssinian Captives'", Journal of African History, 2 (1961), p. 245
  3. Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".

Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".

External links

Template:Authority control

Template:Ethiopia-diplomat-stub Template:Asbox