Uganda Journal - Vol 32, p.224 - Terence Patrick O'Brien who died in London on July 25, 1968, at the age of 59, was, with E.J. Wayland, one of the pioneers of research into Uganda's prehistory. It is to O'Brien that we owe the first full presentation of Uganda's prehistory in his still very valuable 'Prehistory of the Uganda Protectorate' published in 1939. His book, with its superb photographs of artefacts and beautiful drawings by Waterhouse of the British Museum, made available to a wide scientific audience the wealth of the stone age settlement of the Kagera valley.

O'Brien first came to East Africa in 1926 as an intending farmer but soon became interested in archaeology returning to England to study Egyptology at University College, London in 1930. After excavation in the Near East with Flinders Petrie and Dorothy Garrod, he returned to East Africa in 1933 where he met E.J. Wayland through whose auspices he was invited by the Protectorate Government to make a full examination of the prehistory of Uganda.

Following a period of further study at Cambridge he returned to Uganda in 1934 for 18 months' intensive research of which his book was the outcome. He returned to Kenya in 1938 where he stayed intermittently until the 1950's, when he retired to London where he eventually joined the staff of the British Museum and helped to classify and re-arrange the African Stone Age collections.

Pre-war volunteer to the Kenya Regiment (KR 503)

Blue Book 1928 1st appt 17.10.1927 as road foreman? Terrence [sic] Patrick O'Brien

Web: 1st went to EA in 1926 as an intending settler and to Uganda in 1933, Developed interest in arch. after year at Univ Coll London studying Egyptology in 1939