| Donald Kingdon | |
| Honorific Prefix: | Sir |
| Birth Date: | 24 November 1883 |
| Nationality: | English |
| Education: | Eastbourne College |
| Alma Mater: | St. John's College, Cambridge |
| Occupation: | Barrister; Civil Servant; Legal theorist. |
| Known For: |
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| Awards: | Knight Bachelor |
Sir Donald Kingdon (24 November 1883 – 17 December 1961) was a British judicial officer who served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria from 1929 to 1946. He remains Nigeria's longest serving Chief Justice. He served under Graeme Thomson, Donald Cameron, Bernard Bourdillon, and Arthur Richards. He also served as the Attorney-General of Nigeria, from 1919 to 1925, and edited and composed several authoritative books about West African laws.[1]
Kingdon, who was born in November 1883, was the son of Walter Kingdon. He was educated at Eastbourne College, and at St John's College, Cambridge.
Kingdon worked for the Colonial Service in Gambia as an Inspector of Schools and Legal Assistant, and later was a member of the country's Legislative Council. He was Attorney-General of Uganda, and he was in 1918 appointed as Attorney-General of the Gold Coast. He was a Knight Bachelor.
Kingdon was appointed as the head of a commission to investigate the 1929 and 1930 insurrections against taxation in the Calabar and Owerri Provinces that killed 55 people.[2] The commission report found that inadequate police training and undue restriction on the investigation of criminality contributed to the violations of law.
Donald Kingdon married Kathleen Moody, who was the daughter of the businessman Charles Edmund Moody,[3] and who was the granddaughter of Major-General Richard Clement Moody (who was the founder of British Columbia) and of Mary Hawks of the Hawks industrial dynasty.[4] Kingdon and Kathleen Moody had three children: