The first recorded Ugandans to travel overseas and return were three Baganda men in 1879.
They were: Namukadde, Katuluba and Magijo. The trio was also the first envoy from Uganda to be sent to the United Kingdom.
The three men were sent by Kabaka Mukabya Muteesa of Buganda to go and represent him to the Queen Victoria of England. To Queen Victoria, Muteesa sent ivory, leopard skin sandals as presents.
In February 1879, Dr. Robert Felkin, Pearson, Litchfield, missionaries sent by the Church Missionary Society, arrived at King Muteesa’s palace in Buganda and were pleasantly welcomed. Because of the cordial relationship they had cultivated with the king, they invited the Kabaka on behalf of the Queen to travel with them to England to meet their queen. While Muteesa turned down their request, he sent the three men as his representatives to go and meet the Queen of England and come back and report what the European world and culture looked like.
And so, on May 23, 1879, Dr. Robert Felkin, Rev. Wilson and the three Baganda men set off for England going through Bunyoro Kingdom, Sudan and Egypt where they boarded a ship to England.
In England, the Baganda men met the Queen at the palace. In March 1881, they arrived safely at Muteesa’s palace with another European missionary Rev Phillip O’Flaherty after a nearly two year stay in England. Rev. O’Flaherty died in July 1886 in a boat accident in the Red Sea on his way back to England.