Herbert Macaulay was born in Lagos on November 14, 1864, Herbert Samuel Heelas Macaulay was a grandson of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther. After his secondary school education in Lagos, he went to England where he qualified as a licensed surveyor.

Macaulay has been called the father of Nigeria nationalism and aptly so, he remained in the vanguard first of Lagos politics and later Nigerian politics and nationalist movement. His role in the development of early West Africa nationalism before World WarІІ:

Macaulay was leading member of the national congress of British West Africa which played no small role in sowing the seeds of incipient nationalism in British West Africa. In Nigeria, he consistently championed the cause of the king and people of Lagos against oppression by the colonial government in the early years of this century. His role in the famous Apapa land case of 1921; his leading part in the “Eshugbayi Eleko versus Government of Nigeria” case of 1928; his leadership of the many protect movements over water rate, taxation and land acquisition by Government are some of the highlights of his brilliant career in rousing early nationalist sentiments in Nigeria.

Macaulay was founder of the Nigerian National Democratic Party (N.N.D.P) which dominated Lagos politics until 1938. Through restricted to Lagos, the N.N.D.P foreshadowed the militant political parties of the post-world war11 era. He was for nearly forty years a thorn in the flesh to the British administration in Nigeria. The fortresses of his strength were his newspaper the “Lagos Daily News”, his party N.N.D.P, the Lagos market women and the House Of Dosumu and his supporters. To these, he added his innate inimitable ability to ire the imagination of is Lagos audiences

Macaulay was however both an agitator for African right as well as a conservative. While he criticized, condemned and opposed the excess of the Lagos government, he at the same time demonstrated great loyalty to British Crown. It is not surprising

therefore that after the restoration of the Eleko in 1931, Macaulay’s relations with the Government become conservative. Like many West Africa educated leaders of this era, he fought to protect the rights of Africans and not for the creation of self-governing Nigeria.

Macaulay died in kano in 1947 at the ripe old age of 82 during the famous N.C.N.C. nation-wide tour which he was leading. His funeral in Lagos drew an unprecedented crowd of over 100,000 mourners-a fitting tribute to the Father Of Nigeria Nationalism.

His activities in the period during and after the second world war will be discussed later.