Sir Ralph Moor Succeeds Macdonald as Commissioner and Consul-General

Sir Ralph Moor succeeded Sir Claude Macdonald as Commissioner and Consul-General of the Niger Coast Protectorate in 1896. Under Moor, the number of Native Courts grew rapidly as new territory was brought under British control; in the period 1898–9 there were already about twenty-three Native Courts in the Niger Coast Protectorate. Moor is described by Afigbo as the man who, more than any other single person in the period before 1914, gave the local government system of the Eastern, Benin and Warri Provinces its distinctive character.