James Churchill Vaughan

James Churchill Omosanya Vaughan Jr., M.D. (30 May 1893 – 1937) was a Nigerian doctor and a prominent political activist.

Birth and education

Vaughan was born in Lagos on 30 May 1893, the son of James Wilson Vaughan, who descended from the 19th century American artisan Scipio Vaughan and through whom he also had Catawba ancestry. His father was a prosperous Lagos Yoruba merchant. Vaughan and Isaac Ladipo Oluwole were the two first Nigerian students at the University of Glasgow, studying medicine there from 1913 to 1918, when they graduated with medical degrees.

Career

Returning to Nigeria in the early 1920s, Vaughan set up a private clinic.

Vaughan became an outspoken critic of the British Colonial Administration, and in 1934 was one of the founders of the Lagos Youth Movement along with other leading activists including Dr Kofo Abayomi, Hezekiah Oladipo Davies, Ernest Sissei Ikoli, and Samuel Akinsanya. Vaughan was the first president of the movement. The Lagos Youth Movement originally had improvement of higher education as its goal, but within four years had become the most influential nationalist organization in the country. It was renamed the Nigerian Youth Movement in 1936 to emphasize its pan-Nigerian objectives. One of the early issues was the curriculum of medical teaching at the Yaba Higher College.