A soldier, explorer of Africa and colonial administrator, Governor of Hong Kong and Governor to General of Nigeria, Lugard was Britain's most famous African Colonial Governor in the age of empire and a pre-eminent colonial thinker in the interwar years.

His life and work spanned all but the final stage of the whole history of British rule in tropical Africa. Three periods were of particular importance: his vigorous action in Uganda from 1890 to 1892, his influential administration of Northern Nigeria from 1900 until 1906, and his amalgamation of the two Nigerians into one administrative entity from 1912 to 1918.