- Tenure
- 1935 — 1943
- Era
- Late Colonial Administration (1929 — 1960)
- Mode of entry
- Appointed by the Crown
- Mode of exit
- Retired
- Spouse
- Lady Violet Bourdillon · 1935 — 1943
Wartime Governor; conceived the three-region structure that would define Nigerian politics until 1967.
Sir Bernard Henry Bourdillon (1883–1948) governed Nigeria through the Second World War, raising the West African Frontier Force contingents that fought in the East African and Burma campaigns. He oversaw the wartime requisitioning of palm produce and tin under the colony's contribution to imperial supply.
His 1939 memorandum recommending the formal division of the country into three administrative regions (Northern, Western, Eastern) was adopted by his successor Sir Arthur Richards in the Richards Constitution of 1946. The regional architecture Bourdillon designed shaped every constitutional debate from 1946 to the 1967 creation of states.
Tier 1 · primary
Courts. Gazettes. National archives.
Tier 2 · corroborating
OCCRP. HRW. BudgIT. TheCable.
Tier 4 · tertiary, flagged
Wikipedia only where primary is pending. Always labelled.