William I of Bimbia, born Bile, was the chief and king of the Isubu ethnic group, who lived in Bimbia on the coast of Cameroon in the mid-to-late 19th century. British traders recognised the sovereignty of William's Bimbia and titled him "king". William sold land to the British missionary Alfred Saker to found the Baptist colony of Victoria, now Limbe. [1] This puzzled rival Bakweri chiefs, since William did not actually own the territory. [2]
William was succeeded by Young King William, his son.
 | This biography of a member of an African royal house is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 | This Cameroonian biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in west-central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Its coastline lies on the Bight of Biafra, part of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. Due to its strategic position at the crossroads between West Africa and Central Africa, it has been categorized as being in both camps. Its nearly 27 million people speak 250 native languages and English or French or both.
1840 (MDCCCXL) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar, the 1840th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 840th year of the 2nd millennium, the 40th year of the 19th century, and the 1st year of the 1840s decade. As of the start of 1840, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
Alfred was sovereign Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 1893 to 1900. He was the second son and fourth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He was known as the Duke of Edinburgh from 1866 until he succeeded his paternal uncle Ernest II as the reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in the German Empire.
Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, was the seventh child and third son of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He served as Governor General of Canada, the tenth since Canadian Confederation and the only British prince to do so to date.
Limbé is a seaside city in the South-West Region of Cameroon. At the 2005 Census, the population was 84,223.
The Duala are a Bantu ethnic group of Cameroon. They primarily inhabit the littoral and southwest region of Cameroon and form a portion of the Sawabantu or "coastal people" of Cameroon. The Dualas readily welcomed German and French colonial policies. The number of German-speaking Africans increased in central African German colonies prior to 1914. The Duala leadership in 1884 placed the tribe under German rule. Most converted to Protestantism and were schooled along German lines. Colonial officials and businessmen preferred them as inexpensive clerks to German government offices and firms in Africa. They have historically played a highly influential role in Cameroon due to their long contact with Europeans, high rate of education, and wealth gained over centuries as slave traders and landowners.
The Subu are a Bantu ethnic group who inhabit part of the coast of Cameroon. Along with other coastal peoples, they belong to Cameroon's Sawa ethnic groups. They were one of the earliest Cameroonian peoples to make contact with Europeans, and over two centuries, they became influential traders and middlemen. Under the kings William I of Bimbia and Young King William, the Isubu formed a state called Bimbia.
The Wovea are an ethnic group native to coastal areas of the Fako division of the Southwest Province of Cameroon. The Wovea are one of the ethnic groups that comprise the Sawa, or Cameroonian coastal peoples.
Alfred Saker was a British missionary of the London Baptist Missionary Society. In 1858 he led a Baptist Mission that relocated from the then Spanish island of Fernando Po and landed in Southern Cameroons. According to the record, he bought land from indigenous Bimbia chiefs, established a seaside settlement christened Victoria after the reigning British Empress. The settlement was renamed Limbe by decree in 1982 by President Ahmadou Ahidjo of Cameroon.
King's College is a private co-educational secondary boarding and day school in Taunton, Somerset, England. A member school of the Woodard Corporation, it has approximately 450 pupils aged 13 to 18, including about 300 boarders. Its affiliated prep school is King's Hall School. The head of the school is currently Michael Sloan, who started his first academic year in the winter of 2022.
Young King William, born Ngombe or Ngomb' a Bila, was, as William II of Bimbia, the chief and king of Bimbia on the coast of Cameroon and of the Isubu ethnic group who lived there. Young King William inherited a kingdom where power was shifting from the monarchy to wealthy traders, a situation that only grew worse under William II's impotent rule. As competition for European trade among the coastal peoples of Cameroon grew more intense, young King William's rivals multiplied and his centralised authority crumbled. He was murdered in 1882.
George Grenfell (21 August 1849, in Sancreed, Cornwall – 1 July 1906, in Basoko, Congo Free State was a Cornish missionary and explorer.
Ewonde a Kwane was a Duala ruler of the Bonambela/Akwa lineage who lived in Douala on the Wouri River. Ewonde was the son of the powerful chief Kwane a Ngie. Ewonde died early, causing a secession crisis in Bonambela. Ngando a Kwa claimed to be his heir and declared himself equal to Bele a Doo, leader of the Bonanjo/Bell lineage. Ewonde's daughter Kanya married Enjobe, an Aboh slave or immigrant in Douala. Their son would found the Bonambele/Deido sublineage. Duala tradition states that another of Ewonde's daughters, Lesenge, married into Isubu royalty and was the mother of King William of Bimbia.
Joseph Merrick was a Jamaican Baptist missionary who, assisted by Joseph Jackson Fuller, established the first successful mission on the Cameroon coast of Africa.
Ambas Bay is a bay of southwest Cameroon.
The Rev. Joseph Jackson Fuller (1825–1908), Baptist missionary to the pre-colonial African Chiefdoms of the Cameroons, was one of the earliest slaves to be freed in Jamaica who went on to become well-educated and travel internationally. He headed mission stations, teaching, preaching, brick-making, and translating books such as John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress into Duala. Retiring to England, Fuller ended his days as a public speaker for Baptist and missionary audiences, sometimes before thousands of people.
Jantzen & Thormählen was a German firm based in Hamburg that was established to exploit the resources of Cameroon. The firm's commercial and political influence was a major factor in the establishment of the colony of Kamerun in 1884.
Bimbia was an independent state of the Isubu people of Cameroon. In 1884, it was annexed by the Germans and incorporated in the colony of Kamerun. It lies in Southwest Region, to the south of Mount Cameroon and to the west of the Wouri estuary. Is situated at the East coast of the Limbé sub-division.
Sir Alfred Joseph Karney Young was a British barrister and judge. He held a number of political and judicial offices, including Attorney General of British East Africa, Chief Justice of the Seychelles, Attorney General of Fiji, Chief Justice of the Leeward Islands, Chief Justice of Fiji, and Chief Judicial Commissioner for the Western Pacific.
Panyarring was the practice of seizing and holding persons until the repayment of debt or resolution of a dispute which became a common activity along the Atlantic coast of Africa in the 18th and 19th centuries. The practice developed from pawnship, a common practice in West Africa where members of a family borrowing money would be pledged as collateral to the family providing credit until the repayment of the debt. Panyarring though is different from this practice as it involves the forced seizure of persons when a debt was not repaid.