This is the first of three chapters that follow Nyerere to the United Kingdom. In this chapter we note Nyerere’s Tanganyikan predecessors who had previously studied in England, and reveal his reason for deciding to take a degree at the University of Edinburgh. The chapter offers an overview of race relations in the United Kingdom at the time, and details the Communist Party’s interest in African students. It then outlines the courses that Nyerere took over his three years in Edinburgh, introduces some of his main lecturers and the readings they prescribed, and considers the Tanganyikan student’s performance alongside his British peers. An investigation is conducted into Nyerere’s financial difficulties, leading to an assessment of what this tells us about his character at the time. New information is offered on Nyerere’s friendships in and outside university. This is set within the context of national and international events, with particular reference to race, democracy and liberation. The chapter draws on the author’s correspondence with White Fathers missionaries, and with various University of Edinburgh academic and chaplaincy staff who knew Nyerere in Edinburgh. It considers Fabian Colonial Bureau correspondence with Tanganyikans, Nyerere’s correspondence with colonial officials in London and Dar es Salaam, and newspaper articles that he read. The chapter serves as one of three chapters that together contribute to a first comprehensive examination of the academic literature that Nyerere studied in Edinburgh. These are used to assess the influence that his choice of degree programme had on his future writing, speeches and policies.

Communists

On Saturday 9 April 1949 Julius Nyerere boarded the state-run British Overseas Airways Corporation’s new Short Solent 2 flying boat ‘Southampton’ for his first flight in an airplane, complete with the luxury of ‘four-course meals and Pullman-style upholstery’.