05/04/2019 East African Notes and Records: FATHER PHIL: GEOLOGIST, BOTANIST, PRIEST

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FATHER PHIL: GEOLOGIST, BOTANIST, PRIEST Martin Walsh

I first met Father Phil when he came to give Midnight Mass in

Utengule-Usangu in 1980. He arrived in the village on his pikipiki
(motorbike) in the late afternoon of Christmas Eve, and I immediately
went off to find him. Some months earlier I’d been told to look out
for this geologist-turned-botanist and White Father, and this was my
first chance to meet him. It was also the first time another white
man had visited Utengule since I’d been there. To my pleasant
surprise I found myself greeting an Englishman, a gaunt northerner (a
“tallish, thin, frail-looking man, with circular spectacles”) whose Vumawimbi, Pemba, 1995
voice and humour reminded me of home. We spent about three hours
lost in lively discussion before the local Catechist and the Village
Secretary both came to tell him that the congregation was waiting,
and that Mass should begin. But it was far too early to start (about
two and half hours before midnight), and Padre Philip tried to resist
their pleas. Finally he gave in, threatening not to come to give
EAST AFRICAN NOTES AND
“Midnight” Mass again. RECORDS is an irregular blog by
Martin Walsh (and guests) and
I’ll never forget sitting at the back of Utengule’s small brick-built place to post miscellaneous
Roman Catholic church hearing him welcome the congregation in notes about East African history,
Swahili with a thick northern accent. I struggled through the rest of ethnography, ethnobiology,
the service – the first Mass I’d ever been to – trying to conceal a broad grin. It was a wet and windy night and linguistics, and anything else
that comes to mind. It takes its
he berated the villagers for not turning out in greater numbers – most of those present were women and
inspiration (if not quite its
children. But afterwards he joined them singing and dancing in the mud outside the church, before we slipped
content and style) from those
off for yet another cup of tea in the small bare room that was reserved for visiting priests. We resumed our marvellously eclectic journals of
earlier conversation by the flickering light of a small kerosene lamp, until eventually he asked the Christmas regional and national Africana
revellers to stop (they’d been singing and dancing for about an hour), and retired for the night. I went back to that political correctness,
my mud hut and after midnight began writing a letter that included details of our meeting, which I described as disciplinary specialisation, and
“my Christmas present”. the commercialisation of
academic publishing have largely
consigned to the dustbin of
Father Phil gave me a potted account of his life, including his academic
history.
and religious conversions. If he could find time he’d arrange for me to
come and stay in the White Fathers’ mission at Irambo (in Imbwila to THE ZANZIBAR LEOPARD is a
the south-west of Usangu), and then we could spend longer talking very occasional blog by Helle
about the natural and cultural history of the Southern Highlands. Alas Goldman and Martin Walsh in
this never came to pass. We didn’t meet again in Utengule until the which we post news, views and
following June, when I came across him preaching in one of the village information about the Zanzibar
drinking clubs. No wonder that the villagers -- many of whom weren’t Leopard (Panthera pardus
adersi) and sometimes other
Christians -- thought that he was something of a character (churchgoers
wildlife in the Zanzibar
themselves would sometimes gleefully mimic the characteristic way in
archipelago.
which he gesticulated with his hands and arms while giving Mass). We
spent more time together that day, and among other things he went
through the plant names in my shoebox file of Sangu vocabulary,
suggesting scientific identifications that I can still read in pencil on the Blog archive

paper slips. The next day, 28 June, was a Sunday, and he gave Mass in ► 2013 (11)
►
the morning and then sped off towards Igurusi and the Tanzam Highway
► 2012 (6)
►
in the afternoon.
► 2011 (12)
►
Although I always wanted to, I didn’t get chance to talk to him again. ▼ 2010 (27)
▼
For some months he was on leave in England, and other priests came to ► December (3)
►
Utengule in his stead. I was back in Cambridge when I heard, more than two years later, that he had died.
► November (3)
►
Mutual friends in Kidugala, Sarah and Christoph Jaeschke, wrote telling me that he’d been killed in an accident
in Mbeya on 7 December 1982. Apparently he was overtaking a bus on his pikipiki and didn’t see an oncoming ► October (4)
►
car. Christoph and he had talked about hiking together from Kidugala over the Kipengere Mountains and down ► September (3)
►
to Usangu in the vicinity of Chimala, but like my own dream of spending more time in his good company, this
► August (4)
►
wasn’t to be. I wrote a belated letter of condolences to his brother in Lancaster, and asked if he knew the
▼ July (4)
▼
whereabouts of the detailed notebooks that Father Phil had kept of his hikes and collecting in the Southern
FATHER PHIL: GEOLOGIST,
Highlands (when he’d shown me one of these I’d implored him to make sure that they ended up one day in a
BOTANIST, PRIEST
library or archive). In return John Leedal sent me a copy of the booklet – Welcome to Mbeya – that his brother
had extensively rewritten and that had been completed and printed by friends after his death. THE USANGU METEORITE
MYSTERY

I’ve treasured this for many years, tracing the footsteps of Father Phil whenever I dip into it. It’s a wonderfully FROM RIBE SCRIBE TO
NATIONALIST POET
succint guide to the landscape that he loved, more substantial than the article on ‘Places to Visit in Mbeya

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05/04/2019 East African Notes and Records: FATHER PHIL: GEOLOGIST, BOTANIST, PRIEST
Region’ that he published in Tanzania Notes and Records in 1981. OKELLO ON WASINI ISLAND
There’s more of the same in the introductory chapter on ‘Highways
and Byways of the Southern Highlands’ in the book on The Mountain ► June (4)
►

Flowers of Southern Tanzania (1982) that he co-authored with fellow ► May (2)
►
botanist Phillip Cribb, in this case woven together with references to
the plant collecting trips of Mary Richards (cf. Condry 1998). And ► 2009 (8)
►

more recently Welcome to Mbeya has itself been expanded and

updated by Liz de Leyser as A Guide to the Southern Highlands of Some publications
Tanzania, with a dedication to Father Phil. Some of the information
Walsh, Martin 2018. Treasure
from these different texts has since been picked up by the standard
island: buried gold and the
tourist guides to Tanzania, and so his knowledge of the region spiritual economy of Pemba.
continues to be passed on. His experience of its plants is, of course, Kenya Past and Present 45: 23-
preserved in the collections that he made and the botanical 32.
designations of the species that are named after him, and ultimately
in the protected areas that now cover parts of this landscape (Kitulo Walsh, Martin 2018. Esmond in
National Park and Mpanga/Kipengere Game Reserve). Zanzibar: a personal recollection.
In Peta Meyer (ed.) The
unassuming American: Esmond
As for Father Phil’s notebooks, I wrote last week to Phil Cribb, asking
Bradley Martin, 1941-2018’,
if he knew of their whereabouts. There are, he said, assorted notes, Kenya Past and Present 45: 8.
maps and sketches in the archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens in
Kew. I don’t know whether these include the detailed notes that I saw in Utengule nearly three decades ago. I Walsh, Martin 2018. The Swahili
hope so, because that kind of knowledge is irreplaceable. language and its early history. In
Stephanie Wynne-Jones and
------------- Adria LaViolette (eds.) The
Swahili World. Abingdon and
Geoffrey Philip Leedal was born in 1927 in Shipley, Yorkshire, and studied at the University of Leeds, where he
New York: Routledge. 121-130.
wrote a Ph.D. on the geology of the NW Highlands of Scotland. He subsequently went on geological surveys and
expeditions in East Africa, and all of his early publications are in this field. He joined the White Father’s Walsh, Martin and Helle Goldman
Missionary Society in 1953, and was ordained a priest in 1961 and appointed to Mbeya. He wrote a number of 2017. Cryptids and credulity: the
(now hard-to-obtain) booklets on the natural history of the area, and collected more than 7,000 botanical Zanzibar leopard and other
specimens for the herbaria in Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and Kew. For these and other details of his life and work imaginary beings. In Samantha Hurn
readers are referred to the obituary written by Phillip Cribb in the Kew Bulletin (1984). (ed.) Anthropology and
Cryptozoology: Exploring
Encounters with Mysterious
Afterword, 27 July 2010
Creatures. Abingdon and New York:
Routledge. 54-90.
Phil Cribb writes:
Cheke, Anthony S., Miguel Pedrono,
When Phil Leedal joined Chris Grey-Wilson and myself in the Southern Roger Bour, Atholl Anderson,
Highlands in 1976 he expounded his plant hunting philosophy. "You Christine Griffiths, John B. Iverson,
will never find new species by walking along tracks in the forest, Julian P. Hume, Martin Walsh 2016.
always walk at right angles to established paths". At that moment he Giant tortoises spread to western
Indian Ocean islands by sea drift
abruptly turned right into the forest and fell down a small cliff.
in pre-Holocene times, not by
Believe it or not we found a new species of Impatiens, subsequently
later human agency – Response
named Impatiens leedalii, where he landed! He had four orchids to Wilmé et al. (2016a). Journal
named after him: Angraecopsis leedalii, Margelliantha leedalii, Stolzia of Biogeography, doi:
leedalii and Ypsilopus leedalii, but he discovered many more novelties 10.1111/jbi.12882, 1-4.
over the years and became an important source of herbarium material
for Kew's work on the Flora of Tropical East Africa. Walsh, Martin 2016. Pygmy tales:
tall stories about short people in East
Africa. Kenya Past and Present 43:
He adds that another plant named after Father Phil was Aloe leedalii
49-60.
S. Carter.  Phil Cribb has also kindly sent me this photo of his friend
and colleague, taken on Mount Rungwe in 1976. Prendergast, Mary E., Hélène Rouby,
Paramita Punnwong, Robert
References Marchant, Alison Crowther, Nikos
Kourampas, Ceri Shipton, Martin
Condry, William 1998. Wildflower Safari: The Life of Mary Richards. Walsh, Kurt Lambeck, Nicole L.
Llandysul, Ceredigion: Gomer Press. Boivin 2016. Continental Island
Formation and the Archaeology
of Defaunation on Zanzibar,
Cribb, Phillip 1984. Rev. G. Philip Leedal W.F. (1927-1982). Kew Bulletin 39 (1): 156.
Eastern Africa. PLoS ONE 11(2):
e0149565.
Cribb, P. J. and G. P. Leedal 1982. The Mountain Flowers of Southern Tanzania: A Field Guide to the Common doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0149565.
Flowers. Rotterdam: A.A.Balkema.
Walsh, Martin 2013. The Segeju
Leedal, P. H. [sic] 1981. Places to Visit in Mbeya Region. Tanzania Notes and Records 86-87: 77-81. complex? Linguistic evidence for the
precolonial making of the Mijikenda.
In Rebecca Gearhart and Linda Giles
Leedal, G. P. (and others) 1983. Welcome to Mbeya. (No publication details).
(eds.) Contesting Identities: The
Mijikenda and Their Neighbors in
de Leyser, Liz (Undated) [2002]. A Guide to the Southern Highlands of Tanzania. (No publication details). Kenyan Coastal Society. Trenton,
New Jersey: Africa World Press. 25-
51.
Posted by Martin Walsh at 23:35
Walsh, Martin 2013. Alison
Labels: botany, geology, Irambo, Kitulo National Park, Mpanga-Kipengere Game Reserve, Philip Leedal, Phillip Cribb, Roman Catholic
Redmayne (1936-2013).
church, Southern Highlands, Tanzania, Usangu, Utengule, White Fathers
Anthropology Today 29 (3): 28.

Walsh, Martin 2013. Mung'aro,

the Shining: ritual and human
2 comments: sacrifice on the Kenya coast.
Kenya Past and Present 40: 11-
22.
Stephen Nicholson 21 September 2018 at 10:42
Walsh, Martin 2013. Realizing
Lovely to come across this as I grew up in Mbeya and Father Phil was a close family friend. He was partly the potential of collective action
responsible for my early interest in Geology and the decision to pursue that subject at degree level. My Mother groups: coordinating approaches

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05/04/2019 East African Notes and Records: FATHER PHIL: GEOLOGIST, BOTANIST, PRIEST
and also keen botanist, Rachel Nicholson, was a contributor to the Mbeya Guide and arranged its printing. I was to women’s market engagement.
responsible for the sketch on the front. (not sure why I got the job!). My sisters and I were often responsible for Case study on women’s collective
taking packages back to to posted to Kew when returning to boarding school. As to the fate of his notes and action in the vegetable sector in
collections, I believe he had left it all to the Uyole Agricultural College. Tanzania, Oxfam GB, February
2013.
Reply
Walsh, Martin and Helle
Replies Goldman 2012. Chasing
imaginary leopards: science,
Martin Walsh 31 December 2018 at 18:52 witchcraft and the politics of
conservation in Zanzibar.
Many thanks for this Stephen, with all that extra information, including your own artistic role! You
Journal of Eastern African
can't imagine how much that little guide meant to me. Good to know that Father Phil's material went
Studies 6 (4): 727-746.
to Uyole. I'm guessing that it was your father who diagnosed and treated me for giardiasis at Mbeya
Hospital in 1981, and I quite possibly met your mother when I went to your house for the Queen's
Walsh, Martin 2012. The not-so-
Birthday celebration in the same year. Apologies, meanwhile, for the late reply: I haven't been writing
Great Ruaha and hidden histories of
the blog for a few years.
an environmental panic in Tanzania.
Journal of Eastern African
Reply Studies 6 (2): 303-335.

Walsh, Martin 2010. Deep

memories or symbolic
statements? The Diba, Debuli and
Enter your comment... related traditions of the East
African coast. In Chantal
Radimilahy and Narivelo
Rajaonarimanana (eds.)
Civilisations des mondes
insulaires (Madagascar, îles du
Comment as: Google Accoun canal de Mozambique,
Mascareignes, Polynésie,
Guyanes): Mélanges en
l'honneur du Professeur Claude
Publish Preview Allibert. Paris: Karthala. 453-476.

Wynne-Jones, Stephanie and

Martin Walsh 2010. Heritage,
Links to this post tourism, and slavery at Shimoni:
narrative and metanarrative on
Create a Link the East African coast. History in
Africa 37: 247-273.
Newer Post Home Older Post
Walsh, Martin 2009. The use of
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom) wild and cultivated plants as
famine foods on Pemba island,
Zanzibar. Études Océan Indien
(Special issue: Plantes et sociétés
dans l’océan Indien occidental)
42/43: 217-241.

Walsh, Martin 2009. The

politicisation of Popobawa:
changing explanations of a
collective panic in Zanzibar.
Journal of Humanities 1 (1): 23-
33.

Walsh, Martin 2009. Against

consensus? Anthropological
critique and the deconstruction of
international water policy. In D.
C. Nanjunda (ed.) Social
Anthropology in India: An
Ethnography of Policy and
Practice (Vol. II). New Delhi:
Sarup Book Publishers. Chapter
19. [reprinted without my
permission!]

Walsh, Martin and Helle

Goldman 2008. Updating the
inventory of Zanzibar leopard
specimens. CAT News
(Newsletter of the IUCN/SSC Cat
Specialist Group) 49 (Autumn
2008): 4-6.

Walsh, Martin 2008. The legend

of Mwaozi Tumbe: history, myth
and cultural heritage on Wasini
island. Kenya Past and Present
37: 26-32.

Walsh, Martin 2007. Pangolins

and politics in the Great Ruaha
valley, Tanzania: symbol, ritual
and difference / Pangolin et
politique dans la vallée du Great
Ruaha, Tanzanie: symbole, rituel
et différence. In Edmond
Dounias, Elisabeth Motte-Florac
and Margaret Dunham (eds.) Le
symbolisme des animaux:
l'animal, clef de voûte de la
relation entre le homme et la
nature? / Animal symbolism:
animals, keystone of the
relationship between man and

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