by Christine Nicholls | Oct 21, 2013 | Christine Nicholls
Herbert Binks (1880-1971), mentioned in Old Africa Aug/Sept 2013, was a photographer and astronomer, and one of Kenya’s earliest English residents. The red-headed ‘Pop’ was a well known figure in Nairobi for over sixty years, and many of his photos of people and...
by Christine Nicholls | Sep 23, 2013 | Christine Nicholls
Last month we saw how Mayence Bent started the Stanley Hotel in Nairobi on Victoria Street (now Tom Mboya Street). She abandoned her so-called ‘husband’, William Bent (actually her step-brother) and took up with Frederick Francis Tate, fifteen years her junior (he was...
by Christine Nicholls | Aug 22, 2013 | Christine Nicholls
Mayence Ellen Bent, the founder of the New Stanley Hotel (now the Stanley Ramada) in Nairobi, had a most interesting early life. She was born in the district of St Pancras, London, on 17 April 1868, the daughter of Walter Bentley Woodbury and Marie Olmeijer. Her own...
by Christine Nicholls | Jul 24, 2013 | Christine Nicholls
Sammy Jacobs (1887-1951) In my blogs of 2 January and 25 January 2012 I talked about the arrival of Jewish families in Kenya. One person I mentioned was Solomon (Sammy) Jacobs, proprietor of the Dustpan emporium in Nairobi before the First World War. Recently his...
by Christine Nicholls | Jun 24, 2013 | Christine Nicholls
At a lunch attended by Kenyan oldies last week, talk turned to the early settlers in Eldoret. Why were there so many South African Boers there? The first to come were the Van Breda brothers, who built a grass hut on the Uasin Gishu plateau in 1903 and started to grow...
by Christine Nicholls | May 21, 2013 | Christine Nicholls
I came across a letter written by Mrs Brian Shaw, of Sotik, in the early days of white settlement in Kenya. The hardships the settlers faced were enormous. When Brian Shaw developed acute appendicitis a doctor and nurse had to come from Nakuru, while friends and...
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