Following a career in colonial administration, serving as governor of Uganda between 1911 and 1918, Sir Frederick John Jackson spent his retirement continuing his studies on East African birdlife. Jackson held great interest in the natural world, and like many naturalists of the time, participated in hunting expeditions and built a large collection of birds and butterflies. Between 1888 and 1917, he published several articles on the birds he collected on his various expeditions in Uganda.
Jackson planned for The Birds of Kenya Colony and the Uganda Protectorate to be a complete survey of his research. The work remained unfinished on his death following pneumonia in 1929. It was completed by William Lutley Sclater, curator of birds at the Natural History Museum, and published in 1938.