Alldridge T.J.
From the 1870s commercial agent for a trading company based on Bonthe, Sherbro island, and latterly (in the 1890s) travelling commissioner for the British Government whose role was to persuade Mende chiefs in the interior of south-eastern Sierra Leone to sign treaties with the British authorities, thus paving the way for the setting up of the Sierra Leone Protectorate. He was the author of The Sherbro and its Hinterland, published 1901, an account of his activities as travelling commissioner and a pioneering and influential description of the institutions and way of life of the Bullom and Mende peoples. An avid collector of the material culture of the indigenous groups with whom he was in contact, he sold part of his substantial collections to the British Museum and to Brighton Art Gallery and Museum and the remainder on the open market.
- T.J.Alldridge, The Sherbro and its Hinterland (London 1901)
- T.J.Alldridge, A Transformed Colony (London 1910)
- C.P.Foray, Historical Dictionary of Sierra Leone (New Jersey 1977) [Has an entry for Alldridge.]
