Samuel Rowe (colonial administrator)

While still in the army, Rowe was in turn head of the governments of the Gambia and Sierra Leone.[3] The Gambia was governed from Sierra Leone during this period.[4] Surgeon Major Rowe was appointed administrator of the Gambia in June 1875.[5] The former administrator, C. H. Kortright, had left the Gambia on 12 February 1875 and Captain Henry T. M. Cooper was acting as administrator. Samuel Rowe arrived on 2 July 1875, but transferred to Sierra Leone the next day, leaving Cooper to continue as acting administrator.[6] Rowe left Bathurst to take office in Freetown, Sierra Leone, as acting governor.[5] Cooper died on 9 January 1877 and on 30 March 1877 Surgeon Major Valesius S. Gouldsbury arrived to take office as administrator.[7]

In Rowe's first tour of duty as governor of Sierra Leone in 1875–81 he was supported by the Colonial Office in pursuing a policy of aggressive colonial intervention in the interior.[8] He led two successful expeditions against the Sherbro people.[1] On 29 April 1887 Rowe returned to the Gambia as administrator, replacing the acting administrator Gilbert T. Carter. During his brief term of office various local rulers agreed to accept British protection.[7] On 12 June 1887 Rowe was promoted to governor-in-chief of the West Africa settlements. On 27 November 1887 he left the Gambia and was replaced by T. Risely Griffith as acting administrator.[9] While governor-in-chief of the British West African Settlements he continued to act as governor of Sierra Leone.[5]

As governor in chief he opposed cession of the Gambia, and strongly opposed the Colonial Office police of giving in to the demands from the French.[5] He planned the expedition by administrator V. S. Gouldsbury to the upper Gambia River in 1881.[10] On 20 April 1880 Rowe was made K.C.M.G. (Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George).[1] He was replaced in Sierra Leone by A. E. Havelock in 1881.[11] The acting governor got news of Havelock's appointment from a foreign consul some weeks before this was confirmed by the Colonial Office.[12]

On 28 January 1881 Rowe became governor of the Gold Coast and Lagos.[1] This was a better-paid position than Sierra Leone.[12] He replaced W. Brandford Griffith.[11] He managed to avoid another war with the Ashantis through his diplomacy.[1] In March 1883 Rowe issued an ordinance establishing registry offices for instruments affecting land in the Gold Coast Colony.[3] In 1884 he was replaced by W. A. G. Young.[11]

On 30 December 1884 Rowe was again appointed governor of the West Africa settlements in response to a special petition of the traders and others.[1] Rowe took office in 1885, replacing A. E. Havelock.[11] During his second term, following the Berlin Conference of 1884–85, British activity in the interior increased and there was growing competition with the French, who had colonial ambitions in the same region.[8] Rowe was given enlarged powers to annex land to the north and east of Sierra Leone.[13] On 11 November 1885 he signed the Havelock Draft Convention, which fixed the northwest boundary of Liberia at the southeast bank of the Mano River, making Sierra Leone and Liberia coterminous.[14] In 1886 Rowe was made an LL.D. by Aberdeen University.[1] In August 1887 the Secretary of State for the Colonies said he had received a report from Rowe saying the chiefs of Jarra and Fogni, who had been suffering from raids by slave traders, had offered to place their territories under British protection.[15]

Rowe's health began to fail in 1887, in part due to worries about the advance of the French in the region. On his way home to recuperate he died at Madeira on 28 August 1888.[1] He was replaced as governor by J. M. Maltby.[11]