Vincent Reynolds Woodland

Who was Vincent Reynolds Woodland?

Vincent Reynolds Woodland was a British colonial administrator who was governor of Mongalla Province of the southern Anglo-Egyptian Sudan from 1920 to 1924.

VR Woodland was born in 1879 and educated at Marlborough College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He married Jeannie Claudine Leighton and had two children called Frances Anne and John. He joined the Sudan Political Service in 1904.

Woodland was Governor of Mongalla Province from 1920 to 1924, when he retired from the service. He was appointed after the former governor Chauncey Hugh Stigand had killed in October 1919 while trying to suppress a revolt by tribesmen of the Aliyab Dinka. The Aliab Dinka rising was put down harshly in 1920. Woodland wrote that "The Government has done nothing for the Aliab. It has not protected them from aggression, has given them no economic benefits ... it has forced them to do a certain amount of labour, to pay taxes and to endure a not negligible amount of extortion by police". However, although he removed the Egyptian ma'mur at Minkammon who had triggered the Aliab revolt through his abuses, Woodland did not appoint a replacement. The Aliab Dinka were left with no administration at all.