More Stories from East Africa's past for you to enjoy
More about Thomas Remington
More about Thomas Remington In last month’s blog I wrote about Thomas Remington. One of Remington’s relatives has contacted me and kindly given me more information about this extraordinary man who established postal services in East Africa. The Frenchwoman he married...
How did the Mail get Delivered in East Africa before 1910?
How did the Mail get Delivered in East Africa before 1910? The postal service of East Africa was first begun as a branch of that of Zanzibar, and its first postmaster-general resided in Zanzibar for eight years before coming to British East Africa in 1899. In...
The Rise and Decline of Cotton Growing in Kenya
The Rise and Decline of Cotton Growing in Kenya Some pioneer settlers thought cotton might succeed in East Africa. So the British East Africa Corporation Ltd was established in 1906 with the aim of spreading the work of the British Cotton Growing Association, a body...
Stories of Workers on a White Farm
Stories of Workers on a White Farm Elspeth Huxley recorded some stories of the workers on the farm of her mother, Nellie Grant, which give a fascinating insight into the history of Kenya. The Grants’ first farm was near Thika and then they moved to a farm at Njoro....
How Farm Workers Came to Settler Farms
How Farm Workers Came to Settler Farms We can get an idea of the motivation of African farm workers if we look at some specific cases. Nellie Grant (Elspeth Huxley’s mother) went to Kenya in 1912 and farmed coffee at Thika. After the First World War she heard she had...
The Jewells and Mombasa Hospital
The Jewells and Mombasa Hospital Last month I talked about the Mombasa Hospital. From 1920 onwards Norman Jewell was in charge of the establishment, and his letters and diaries show us what medical hazards were faced by Mombasa’s inhabitants in the 1920s. Jewell had...
Mombasa Hospital’s Early Days
Mombasa Hospital’s Early Days When the Imperial British East Africa Company began to trade in East Africa in the early 1890s, there was a need for a hospital for Europeans, prone to fall sick so easily in a country with an unfamiliar climate, where malaria was...
Where Antelope Roam – A book review
Where Antelope Roam Reviewed by Rachel Woodworth A book review ought to start, more than likely, with the book. But my review can’t begin there. It begins with the man. The man who wrote the book, who gathered days and moments, adventures and seasons, who recalled...
The Wrens in Mombasa in World War II
The Wrens in Mombasa in World War II The Mombasa of today is so different from the Mombasa of the Second World War that it is worth having a look at what the town was like previously. One of the best people to describe it is an officer in the Wrens who was posted to...
Who was Freddy Ward?
Who was Freddy Ward? The name Freddie or Freddy Ward crops up so repeatedly in the early land dealings of East African settlers that it is worth finding out about the man behind the name. Like many of the early white settlers, Hamilton Frederick Ward fought in the...
The Sandbach Bakers and Kenya’s First Dairy
The Sandbach Bakers and Kenya’s first Dairy One of the first white settlers to be given land in Nairobi was Frederick Baker. He was granted 1,600 acres in Muthaiga by John Ainsworth, the Sub-Commissioner, on condition that he supplied Nairobi with dairy products. Who...
Mombasa’s Law Courts
Mombasa’s Law Courts On 30 August 1984 the new Law Courts were opened in Mombasa, but where had justice been dispensed beforehand? A British court, presided over by an English barrister, had been established in a godown near the old harbour in Mombasa in 1890,...
Where Antelope Roam: by Jon Arensen
New From Old Africa books! Where Antelope Roam: And Other Stories Out of Africa by Jon Arensen The short stories in this book are all connected to Jon Arensen's experiences in East Africa. They are deeply personal and are narrated in the first person. As in any good...
Brian Havelock Potts
What caused young men to join the exodus from Britain to East Africa in 1910-1912? Let us take one example and look at his memoir. Brian Havelock Potts, born in Brixton on 30 March 1891 as a fourth child and only son, came from a middle-class family. His father William Potts was a journalist (a parliamentary reporter in 1891) at the Morning Standard and was made redundant when Brian was 15. Brian became an office boy in a London stockbroker’s. There a friend told him his brother was growing coffee in Nairobi. This prompted the young Brian to visit Rowland Ward’s (the taxidermist in Piccadilly), and next door stood the safari outfitters Newland Tarlton…
Violet Donkin and Fritz Schindler – Matron of Scott Sanatorium Grieves After Fiancee Dies Following Lion Attack
For the last two months I have been talking about the founding of the Scott Sanatorium, and the part Violet Donkin played in this. However, a year after the facility opened, she departed for England. Why? A scrutiny of the surviving manuscripts gives us a clue. We learn from The Leader of 24 January 1914 that Violet had recently left ‘upon medical advice.’ Then, in an obscure journal of Brian Havelock Potts held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, we find that Potts served in the army after the outbreak of the First World War, contracted amoebic dysentery, and was taken to the Scott Sanatorium…
On Call in Africa – book review
On Call in Africa in War and Peace, 1910-1932 by Norman Parsons Jewell Norman Jewell’s memoir gives us the best eyewitness account of medical conditions among the troops fighting in East Africa that has been published so far. It is a riveting story of...
Violet Donkin and the Scott Sanatorium
Violet Donkin and the Scott Sanatorium Last month we read about the establishment of the Scott Sanatorium outside Nairobi under the leadership of the nurse and midwife (Frances) Violet Donkin. Who was she? I mentioned her in my blog of 9 May 2012, but gave few...
The Scott Sanatorium
The Scott Sanatorium In 1912 it was felt that there was a need for a sanatorium in Nairobi for white settlers, and the idea for the Scott Sanatorium took root. What was the origin of its name? It was named for the Rev. Henry Edwin Scott, LRCP and SE, a medical...