Ernest C. Lanning (known as Eric) was born in London in 1913. He was educated at St. Paul’s School and a commercial school in Geneva from 1930 to 1932. Lanning worked in Kenya as a pupil on a coffee plantation owned by N. G. Lavington at Kitale during 1932-34. He then joined the Kakamega Gold Rush during 1935, initially as a storekeeper and van driver delivering supplies to the mining camps, and then working as a gold prospector for Alluvial Concessions Ltd at Owombo and Kakamega. In 1937, Lanning was employed in Sierra Leone as a mining assistant by Gold & Base Metal Mines of Nigeria Ltd, surveying and prospecting for gold in the Northern Province. He then moved to the Gold Coast where he worked for Amalgamated Banket Areas Ltd (sic) as an administrative assistant at one of the big lode mines near Tarkwa. Lanning had been in the Kenyan Defence Force and joined the Royal West African Frontier Force in Oct. 1939 when the Second World War was declared. Commissioned in 1940, he served in Kenya, North Africa and India. After the war, Lanning worked briefly in Germany as part of the Military Government before joining the Colonial Service and being posted to Uganda in 1948. He served in: Kigeze 1948-49, West Nile 1949-50, the Secretariat, Entebbe, 1950-51, Masaka, 1951-52, Mubende, 1952-56, and Masaka, 1957-59.