Monday, August 23, 2010

The demise of Lord Harcourt

Scroll down to the 6th paragraph to find out what happened to the man Port Harcourt is named after. Thanks JB for the link.


The Wikipedia entry for him also provides further evidence:

'Harcourt was known as a sexual predator attracted to both sexes. He tried to rape Dorothy Brett, the daughter of Lord Esher, and followed this by an attempt to seduce his son. Dorothy Brett wrote of him that "it is so tiresome that Loulou is such an old roué. He is as bad with boys as with girls .. he is simply a sex maniac. It isn't that he is in love. It is just ungovernable Sex desire for both sexes". His behaviour was known and tolerated in private, but when he attempted to seduce one 12-year-old boy (Edward James, who grew up to become a great collector of surrealist and other contemporary art), the boy's mother began to tell the whole of society. Harcourt could not tolerate the impending disgrace and he committed suicide at his London home in Brook Street.'

How PH got its name is almost as casual a story as how Nigeria got its name (from Flora Shaw):

'In August 1913, the Governor–General of Nigeria, Sir Frederick Lugard wrote to Harcourt, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, "in the absence of any convenient local name, I would respectfully ask your permission to call this Port Harcourt." To this the Secretary of State replied, "It gives me pleasure to accede to your suggestion that my name should be associated with the new Port."'

Addendum (26th August). More on Loulou Harcourt's activities here (scroll down to the paragraph that begins "Historians generally doubt.."

5 comments:

Anonymous,  2:54 pm  

http://breathandearth.blogspot.com/

CodLiverOil 11:59 pm  

Setting the cat amongst the pigeons...

While Mr Harcourt has established this unsavoury practice, for preying on children. Will the people of Zamfara state re-name Gusau, to "Yerrimaville". Their former governor is known to be a pedophile, who has no conscious and thinks he has done nothing wrong. Even worse society tolerates this blatant disregard for it's minors, and foreign minors.

Anonymous,  9:13 am  

Ironic Nigeria was founded by a paedophile. Thanks for the article. Mr ade

CodLiverOil 2:15 pm  

Read this if you care to,

Click here

Hmmm, I seem to recall that this man (Mr Rabo) was responsible for the imprisonment and of an actor and a singer, because he thought their work transgressed his interpretation of Islam, and placed a ban on some of their material.

Apparently an "alleged" case of sexual abuse of a minor; saw him protest his innocence and subsequently run away to Saudi Arabia. If innocent as he claims, what is he running from? Why not face the justice he was so keen to meet out to others?

Anonymous,  3:22 pm  

interesting read.

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