Jessen - Visited farm owned by Major Ringer (newly bought) by a river called N'Derugo 30 miles East of Nairobi called 'Long Juju' ........ farm bought by W.N. McMillan in 1905 (10,000 acres)    

Adventurers - 'At Donyo Sabuk, about 30 miles out of Nairobi, Major Ringer had a farm which is now known as "Ju-Ja" Farm. ........ he had spent many years on the West Coast of Africa, and could tell some gruesome stories of cannibalism and native witch-doctors and their practices ..... instead of returning to Europe, he came back to Nairobi and built the Norfolk Hotel before he subsequently left the country. He died a tragic death at sea some years later, falling overboard from his yacht while entering Falmouth harbour, and being drowned. The body was never recovered.

Playne - The Norfolk Hotel - This was established in December 1904 on Christmas Day, by Major Ringer, the proprietor. The hotel has 34 bedrooms and two cottages for married couples, dining-room to seat from 60 to 100, and there is also a small private dining-room as well as a sitting-room, billiard-room, and large bar, baths - hot and cold water - and electric light throughout. There is a French chef, and the cuisine is excellent, the vegetables being supplied by contract from a special farm. The staff consists of 5 Europeans and 24 natives. Conveyances meet all trains. There is a good store-room for luggage for people on safari, and baggage is covered by insurance. This hotel is undoubtedly the best north of Dar-es-Salaam. The writer lived in it during his stay in Nairobi, and can personally recommend it.

Drumkey 1909 - Directory of Residents - Major C.H. Ringer, Nairobi ??

Law Report - East Africa - 11/1905 - …… A Mr Twyford owed Plaintiff, Bishendas, Rs. 65 from whom Major Ringer, Defendant, claimed Rs. 75 the value of certain property of his said to have been lost owing to the negligence of Plaintiff's servant while it was under his control. ……

Nicholls - the Norfolk …… Owned by Major C.G.R. [sic] Ringer and his partner R. Aylmer Winearls, it was built of stone, with a tiled roof. ………

Chandler - Major G.C.R. Ringer - was an Englishman who came to East Africa on a hunting trip and liked what he saw. ……. Ringer was so taken with the country that he decided to settle and in December 1904 opened the doors of the Norfolk Hotel, a mile from the railway station in Nairobi. He did well financially, but some years later he fell overboard from the deck of his yacht in Falmouth Harbour and drowned. His body was never recovered.

Web - birth in Clifton, Bristol 1860; appears in 1911 census as single brother to Adall Ringer; 1887 in Jamaica

Web - Probate in UK of Charles Harding Newman Ringer of 8 Green-bank, Falmouth died 18 September 1912 at sea. Administration London 4 December to Ada Harding Ringer, spinster - Effects £5824 17s 1d

Mills Norfolk - His father was a partner in the firm of Edwards Ringer & Co, tobacco merchants and manufacturers founded in 1813. .….….….. His father, who had been to the Azores for his health, died of apoplexy on 25 March 1868 on his return aboard the 'Margam Abbey' leaving a widow and 3 children, Charles aged only 8. .….…...

His mother was remarried 8 months later on 21 November, in St Andrew's Church, Clifton, by the Rev Bishop Anderson to John George Sarsfield Macnamara Moore, a retired Naval Commander. The family moved to his property 'Woodside' in the village of Godstone, Surrey. … He died in 1872. .….…..

On 21 September 1878 Charles, aged 18, enlisted as a sub-lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment and was promoted to Lieutenant on 16 February 1881 .….……

In May 1882, his military service ended and, perhaps influenced by hia 50 year old uncle Theobald, a recently retired Deputy Surgeon-General with the Bengal Medical Establishment, he travelled abroad for 9 years. In 1883/84 he went to South Africa and then to the West Indies, South America and Cuba, an area where his mother's family, the Harding-Newmans of Nelmes in Essex, had interests.

In 1891, he had returned to England and re-entered military service spending the next 9 years in West Africa. He joined the private Royal Niger Company .….….….

Land - 1906 - C.H. Ringer - Grazing, 5,000 acres - Donyo Sabuk - 99 years lease from 1/1/1905 - Registered 22/1/1906 North - Landholder's Game Licence, Nairobi April-June 1905; 1906 Nairobi

EAHB 1907 - Major C.H. Ringer - Nairobi

Gazette - 1-1-1905 - Landholder's Licence - Major C.H. Ringer

Unknown Source, by Colin Ryan: Major Charles Harding Newman Ringer may have heard of the attractions of the British East Africa Protectorate, as Kenya was then known, from colleagues during his period in West Africa. When he saw it for the first time in 1903, en route back from South Africa to England, it made sufficient impression upon him to ensure that he returned. What connects this period with his birth into a comfortable, prominent Bristol family in 1860 is a varied but perhaps not untypical story for its time. He was born on 2nd February,1860 to Charles and Julia Harding (née Newman) Ringer of Brighton Lodge, Lower Harley Place, Clifton. He was their third child but first son. The household included four servants. His father was a partner in the firm of Edwards, Ringer & Co, tobacco merchants and manufacturers founded in 1813. The firm had premises by the waterfront on Redcliff Street, Bristol. His father was a Captain in the Bristol Regiment of Rifle Volunteers and a Warden of the prestigious Society of Merchant Venturers.

This comfortable life was brought to an end when his father, who had
been to the Azores for his health, died of apoplexy on 25th March, 1868
on his return aboard the 'Margam Abbey' leaving a widow and three children, Charles aged only 8. This event, whilst he was so young, seems to have broken any expectation that Charles would follow his father into the family business. His mother was remarried eight months later, on 21st November, in St Andrews Church, Clifton, by the Rev Bishop Anderson to John George Sarsfield MacNamara Moore, a retired Naval Commander. The family moved to his property, Woodside, in the village of Godstone, Surrey. He is described as a Justice of the Peace and Landowner and the household included two servants. However, he was to die in the autumn of 1872, when Charles was 12, and by 1881 the family are recorded as lodging at 7, Southsea Terrace, Portsea, described as 'naval annuitants' receiving an annual payment from the Navy.

From these apparently reduced circumstances on 21st September,1878 Charles, aged 18, enlisted as a sub-lieutenant in the 3rd  Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment and was promoted to Lieutenant on 16th February,1881. As a militia battalion, it trained annually but only 'embodied' during periods of war whilst the regular army was abroad. In May 1882, his military service ended and, perhaps influenced by his 50 year old uncle Theobald, a recently retired Deputy Surgeon-General with the Bengal Medical Establishment, he travelled abroad for nine years. In 1883/84, he went to South Africa and then to the West Indies, South America and Cuba, an area where his mother's family, the Harding-Newmans of Nelmes in Essex, had interests.

By 1891, he had returned to England and re-entered military service,
spending the next nine years in West Africa. He joined the private Royal
Niger Company, which had been granted a Royal charter in 1886 to administer trading on the Niger River. Its military resources consisted of river steamers with light guns and an armed constabulary of a few hundred Hausas and Yorubas commanded by British officers, such as Lieutenant Ringer. He spoke both local languages together with German. 

He re-entered the regular army in 1893 through the Provisional
Battalion at Shorncliffe Barracks in Kent, before joining another militia regiment,-the 3rd Battalion East Lancashire Regiment. He  was promoted to Captain on 28th May, 1893 when seconded to the Niger Coast Protectorate, a Crown Protectorate responsible for the lower reaches of the river and coastline.  In April 1896, Captain Ringer provided the military escort fora British expedition into the Niger hinterland where they heard that 'every year the King of Benin made human and other sacrifices for juju (black magic) purposes' and caused his neighbours 'a lot of trouble. The Consulate General in Old Calabar mentioned in his letter of 18th July,1896 to the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at the Foreign Office that 'Captain Ringer carried out the duty... with tact". The success of British interests in the area depended upon trade, and treaties had been signed with numerous local chiefs to further these interests. However the King of Benin resisted such approaches and efforts were made to convince him otherwise.

On 27th December, 1896, thing Consul-General Phillips left Old
Calabar aboard the Niger Coast Protectorate boat 'Ivy' accompanied
by 100 troops under the command of Captains Searle and Ringer. The
troops and officers were left at New Calabar whilst Phillips together
with six Protectorate officers and two traders sailed around the coast to
Sapele. On 2nd January, 1897 they set out cross country, accompanied
by about 250 carriers but no armed escort, to visit the King of Benin,
The King sent word that he didn't wish them to come, but they
continued. Within a few days, all bar two of the British contingent and
many of the bearers were massacred, the two escaping through the
bush to the coast. This was termed the 'Benin Massacre' and the Royal Navy, the principal military force along the coast, assembled local Coast Protectorate forces together with others from the Atlantic, India and Mediterranean. They proceeded through the bush and by 17th February had destroyed large parts of the kingdom and city of Benin and killed many of its people, although the King escaped for six months.

Captain Ringer was reported as leading a half company of Coast
Protectorate men supported by a Maxim gun unit and proceeded
through continual resistance to the city. The widespread scenes of
horrific human sacrifices perpetrated by the King that the punitive
expedition discovered in Benin created great revulsion in England.
At that time Joseph Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary, combined the
various British military forces in West Africa into the West African Frontier force (WAFF). A contemporary book gives an insight into the position of the WAFF's British officers, among who was Captain Ringer, "In the first years of the WAFF, many of the junior officers were not up to their task. The force initially contained a high proportion of men who had been commissioned in the militia and had advanced through local West African constabularies, with the result that they were inadequately trained for the military profession. However, the officer corps was not short of volunteers.

In 1898, we have a contemporary description of Captain Ringer as the
medical report accompanying his home leave refers to him 'after the
Benin Expedition suffering from acute rheumatism that incapacitated
him for upwards of three months... his appearance was anaemic, slightly yellow, general languor... a good deal of swelling over the knee joint with inability to go up or down stairs without the aid of a stick'. He was engaged in further action to control the Kingdom of Benin during 1899.

In 1900, the 3rd Battalion East Lancashire Regiment was 'embodied'
on 24th January for service in the Boer War and on 2nd July Captain
Ringer accompanied a draft of the regiment sailing on the 'Ulstermore'
from Liverpool to the Cape arriving on 24th July. He rejoined the Regiment from the seconded list on 25th August. Captain Ringer was attached to the Army Service Corps as railway staff officer and commandant Smaldeel in the Orange River Colony. The Regiment was 'disembodied' after 26 months on 25th March, 1902 but Captain Ringer remained in the Transvaal and departed for England on 25th April, 1903. During this period, on 30th August, 1902, he was gazetted as Major it is probable that it was on this journey back to England that Major Ringer, unmarried and aged 43 and without any immediate military commitments, first entered British East Africa when the vessel called at Mombasa. Certainly by the end of April he was on the North German Lloyd Line vessel 'Bremen, sailing from Aden to Southampton.

Whilst still in the militia, he returned to East Africa and in 1904 met
fellow settler Robert Winearls, 5 years his senior and a similar lifelong
traveller with a common service in the recent war and, with no evident
experience, proceeded to create the Norfolk Hotel, the subject of this
book. At that time, he also acquired a fine estate for hunting game east of Nairobi in the vicinity of Donyo Sabuk that by 1906 had been acquired by William Northrup McMillan. On 28th April. 1906, aged 46, he resigned his commission in the Army 'with permission to retain his rank and wear the prescribed uniform'. On 12th June, 1906, his Uncle Theobald Ringer, died in retirement in Cheltenham. In this period Major Ringer acquired Winearls' interest and became the sole proprietor of the Norfolk. In January 1910, he travelled from Liverpool to the United States to visit Pasadena, California and by May that year had entered into discussions to sell the Norfolk Hotel. His mother had died in 1892 and his unmarried sisters were now settled in Northam, North Devon. Perhaps attracted by memories of his youth he also returned to a harbour in the South West, acquiring 8, Greenbank, Falmouth, a prestigious waterside address. He and his two sisters moved in and he, a keen sailor, became a member of the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club.

The sale of the Norfolk Hotel was completed on 21st April, 1911
although as part of the transaction he received a large shareholding in the Company that acquired it. In June, he travelled to theVnited States, first class on the 'SS Olympic' and holidayed at the Metropole Hotel on Catalina island, California quoting on the manifest fellow settler
and celebrity, William Northrup McMillan of 19, Hill Street, London
as his 'nearest relative or fi-iend. As a keen yachtsman and fisherman, he presumably enjoyed the sporting opportunities the hotel offered. He returned to England in September 1911.

On Wednesday, 12th September, 1912. he took his yacht 'Glitter' out
from Falmouth and was knocked overboard and drowned whilst his boatman was below deck. Aged 52, he died at sea, as his father had 44 years earlier. His estate was valued at £5,824.171d (today's equivalent £430,000) was ieft to his sisters. What if his father hadn't died prematurely? The firm was soon joined by W. D Bigg & Co to become EdvitiO,  Ringer & Bigg Ltd and in 1901 was one of 13 firms acquired by the newly incorporated Imperial Tobacco Company and the name Edwards, Ringer and Bigg survived on, certain brands and cigarette cards well into the 20th century. Indeed the premises in Redcliff Street, Bristol continued to be known locally as 'Ringers' until their closure in 1974 and their facade is still retained as part of a subsequent residential development. So Charles Ringer, although born into comfort, before maturity had to find his own way in the world. He spent most of his adult life abroad, initially presumably in commerce, but then principally in military service, not marrying and rarely settling for more than a few years. Then, when he arrives in East Africa, lie makes his only known commercial investment, in a hotel in a developing town at the heart of a growing country. His ambitions were probably quite modest; a quintessential wanderer he established a prospect of England in foreign parts, and it would no doubt surprise and delight him to see what it has become in the century since its founding.