SHIPPARD, SIR SIDNEY GODOLPHIN ALEX ANDER (1838-1902), British colonial administrator, was edu cated at King's college school and Oxford, and was called to the bar in 1867. He was attorney-general of Griqualand West from 5873-7, when he was made acting recorder of the high court of Griqualand. From 1880-5 he sat as a judge of the supreme court of Cape Colony; and he was British commissioner on the Anglo-German commission in 1884-5 for settling the claims of British subjects at Angra Pequena and other parts of the south-west coast. Shippard, while at Oxford in 1878, had dis cussed with Cecil Rhodes the plan of the projected British ad vance in south central Africa. He saw in the German annexa tion of Damaraland and Namaqualand the first step in a design to secure for Germany territory stretching from ocean to ocean. Consequently when after the Warren expedition of 1885 he was chosen to organize the newly acquired British possessions in Bechuanaland he saw in his appointment an opportunity for forestalling the Germans, and also the Boer adventurers who likewise sought to be beforehand with Britain in the countries north of the Limpopo.
At the end of 1887 he went to Grahamstown to induce the high commissioner (Sir Hercules Robinson—afterwards Lord Rosmead) to sanction the conclusion of a treaty with the Mata bele King Lobengula binding that ruler not to cede any territory to any other power than England. He failed, and then telegraphed to Cecil Rhodes at Kimberley to come and try the effect of his eloquence. Rhodes came, and by taking upon himself all pecuni ary responsibility succeeded in obtaining the requisite sanction. The treaty was signed and British interests secured. Shippard thenceforth governed Bechuanaland with conspicuous success. He was administrator, chief magistrate and president of the Land Commission for British Bechuanaland, and resident com missioner for the Bechuanaland Protectorate and the Kalahari. He was created K.C.M.G. in 1887. In 1896 he played an un official part in the negotiations between Robinson and the Johannesburg reformers after the Jameson Raid. He then re turned to England, where he died on March 29, 1902.