by Christine Nicholls | Jan 1, 2021 | Christine Nicholls
Kitale in 1930 I am grateful to Nick Symes for showing me this letter a farming friend in Kitale wrote to his father: It paints a good picture of Kitale in 1930, the year in which the photographs below were taken. “Kitale was as far inland and as near the borders...
by Christine Nicholls | Dec 1, 2020 | Christine Nicholls
Should Afrikaans have been Taught in Plateau Schools? A large number of Afrikaners on the Uasin Gishu plateau in 1910 approached the Governor to establish a school for their children. The government did establish two small schools in early 1910 but insisted on the...
by Christine Nicholls | Nov 3, 2020 | Christine Nicholls
Ivory Smuggling When I was a child I would climb down the Ras Serani cliffs at Mombasa at low tide to swim and forage on the revealed coral reef. There you could find chunks of ivory obviously thrown overboard from dhows when apprehended by customs boats. The Arab...
by Christine Nicholls | Oct 2, 2020 | Christine Nicholls
Who began the Kakamega Gold Rush in the 1930s? A tall, bony American set forth from Eldoret with his wife in an ancient Ford in 1930, with two other Europeans and five Africans, on a prospecting expedition to northern Tanganyika, after the price of maize had fallen...
by Christine Nicholls | Aug 31, 2020 | Christine Nicholls
More about Frank Hall Last month I talked about Frank Hall, for whom Fort Hall was named. He arrived at Fort Smith, about eight miles from present-day Nairobi, in 1893, and one of his jobs was to supply the caravans of people who marched from the coast to Uganda....
by Christine Nicholls | Jul 31, 2020 | Christine Nicholls
Why was Fort Hall given that Name? Many of you will remember Murang’a as Fort Hall, and you may have wondered at the name. When the railway reached the end of the Kapiti plains in 1899, it was half way to its final destination – Lake Victoria. The directors decided to...
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