Skip to content ↓

View entry

Back to search results

Name: BINKS, Herbert Kay OBE, FRAS 'Pop'

image of individualimage of individualimage of individual

Birth Date: 1 Aug 1880 Outwood, Wakefield

Death Date: 30 June 1971 Nairobi

First Date: 1902

Last Date: 1971

Profession: Astronomy, photography, engineering

Area: Nairobi, EAHB 1905 - Limoru

Married: 1913 Louisa Kay b. 1888, d. 1 May 1969 Nairobi

Children: 1 dau.; Paul Herbert Kay (Nairobi 13 Nov 1916-1936, tuberculosis)

Author: 'African Rainbow' 1959 {ghost written when he was ill and unreliable}

Book Reference: Gillett, HBEA, Brewery, Binks, Verandah, Stoneham Wanderings, EAHB 1905, Red 31, Hut, North, Curtis, Macmillan, Pioneers, Drumkey, Land, EAHB 1906, Gazette, Barnes, EAHB 1904, EAHB 1907, SKP, Leader14, Chandler, Foster, Red Book 1912, Red 19

War Service: Driver with East African Units

General Information:

He lived in the country for more than 60 years and was an authority on many subjects, but distinguished himself mostly in Astronomy, Photography and Engineering. Caused great consternation amongst the Africans with his red hair. His wife was gifted and helped him in all his ambitions.
For many years he was the leading photographer in Nairobi and had a large and famous clientele, but latterly he concentrated more on Astronomy. He built a most ingenious observatory entirely by himself on his own plot of land in Nairobi and through the years gave much instruction, information and pleasure to a great number of people. For his services and knowledge he was awarded the above decorations.
Brewery - 1930 - Lager produced - The first sampling of lager was good. It was time for more publicity and Mr Binks offered at a shilling a foot to make a cinematograph film of the brewery for exhibition at the various cinemas throughout EA.                                                                                  
Binks - 'Lured from his remote Yorkshire village by stories of gold to be found in Africa, the author emigrated at the age of 20 to Kenya in 1900. Arriving at Mombasa he found that his dreams of wealth had little to do with reality. The country was undeveloped and little was done by the colonial officials to encourage settlers. The economic prospects were dismal as there were very few markets for farm produce, and communications were slow and difficult. Undeterred, the author with one companion took the train to Nairobi where they found only a collection of corrugated-iron huts. Before long he had bought a smallholding for £50 and he settled down to farming. However, a visit to Nairobi, which happened to coincide with one by Chamberlain, convinced him that there was more money to be made in photography. He hired himself out as a photographer, accompanying some of the big-game hunting safaris which were drawing people from all over the world, especially from America. In this way he met the famous Tarpon Dick who preferred a lassoo to the rifle. From photography H.K. Binks turned to ivory hunting, and he tells of many exciting experiences in the bush. He reviews the enormous potential of an undeveloped country with the deep insight of a man who knows and loves his subject. ....                               
Verandah - I visited Mr Binks, the photographer, to have my passport photo taken. Mr Binks was one of the earliest settlers; he came from Yorkshire where he had been a pharmacist. Mrs Binks stayed in the studio and photographed local society. She was little and pink-haired and pushed one's limbs about peremptorily as she arranged her picture. The poor Binkses, their only son died of tuberculosis, which was said not to exist in Kenya.  
Stoneham Wanderings - Mr Binks has taken a photo of Mt Kenya from Nairobi, a remarkable feat.
Curtis - p. 42 - Joan Bagehot recalls that H.K. Binks left his apprenticeship with a Yorkshire chemist to try his luck in EA at the turn of the century. He bought a few hundred acres of land in Limuru from a local chief, handing over two cows as a deposit; the Administration found that the chief did not own the land and charged Binks 2 rupees per acre. He took photographs of the 1902 visit to Nairobi of Joseph Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, with a borrowed camera; these and later photographs were so popular that in 1905 he gave up farming and opened a studio in Nairobi. During the First World War Binks used a telescope to read the messages sent by heliograph from the German positions on Kilimanjaro to their troops on the plains below. After the war he took a delight in studying astronomy, gradually building more powerful instruments himself for the purpose.
Macmillan - 1930 - H.K. Binks, General Photographer and Cinema Specialist etc., Kinema House, Government Road. …In 1909 he won the worlds record for photography by his photograph of Mount Kenya, taken at Nairobi, 90 miles distant, at 5.30 pm on May 1st, 1908. …… Mr Binks is a gentleman of uncommon versatility. In 1911, for instance, after having long studied thescience of aeronautics, he built and demonstrated an aeroplane, composed entirely of wood, including the wings, which so greatly interested the then Governor, Sir Percy Girouard, that specifications of it were sent to the British War Office in London. It has not been ascertained, however, how far Mr Binks' remarkable invention contributed to the science of air navigation, which at that time was at its commencement. At the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 Mr Binks joined the Royal Engineers, and placed at the disposal of the Government his entire bioscope plant, which he had converted into a signalling plant. He also invented a remarkable telescope that was of very great use to the military authorities, who were enabled by it to receive signals across German territory for a distance of 50 miles. On being disbanded after service of four and a half years, Mr Binks went to England for the benefit of his health, where he remained until 1926, when he returned to Nairobi and started business again there, but on a more extensive scale than before. His excellent cinema pictures of the visit of the Prince of Wales to Kenya in 1928 were shown to highly appreciative audiences in the local Theatre Royal. ….. (more)
North - Binks suggests in 'African Rainbow that he travelled to EA in 1900 but all other evidence shows it to have been 1902. Land - 1906 - H. Binks - Agricultural, 640 acres, Karula, 29-4-04, Homestead, Registered 30-8-06
Gazette - 7/4/15 - Liable for Jury service, Nairobi District - H.K. Binks, Government Road
Nairobi Forest Road Cemetery - Herbert Kay Binks, British, age 91, died 30/6/71 and Louisa Kay Binks, British, age 81, died 1/5/69 and Paul Herbert Kay Binks, British, age 20, died 8/9/36
North - Arr. Mombasa from England on ss Reichstag 3-2-1902
EAHB 1904 - Masai-Land District Residents - Binks, H. - Kalula
SKP - 1938 - Society of Kenya Pioneers - over 30 years in Colony - arrived Jan 1900
Red Book 1912 - H. Binks - Nairobi
Red Book 1919 - H K Binks - Photographer - Nairobi
Old Africa - 21-10-13 - 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 places still exist. Unfortunately the photo archive he gave to the Kenya Archives was ruined in a flood.
Binks wrote a memoir, African Rainbow (1959), which many of you will have read. Alas, it is not entirely accurate, having been dictated in old age when memories fade, but it gives a good picture of early Nairobi. For example, Binks says he arrived in East Africa in 1900, but we know that he did not set foot there until 4 February 1902 (Binks’s diary). In 1901 he was in Plymouth, training to be a chemist (see 1901 census). He had been born in Outwood, near Wakefield, on 1 August 1880, the youngest child of six of John Binks, stonemason and builder, and his wife Elizabeth. His brothers also became stonemasons, but Herbert had different ambitions. After his chemist’s training with Robert Roper in Plymouth, he set sail for Africa.
He bought land on the boundary of the Kikuyu reserve, north-west of the railway line (Land Grant Application, 12.8.1902), and tried farming at ‘Kalula’, Thembigwa, near Limuru, for a few years, at first with potatoes and then with vegetables. As it proved not to be lucrative, he opened a photographic studio in Nairobi and sold his first photos in 1904. His fortunes rose and fell – there are several law cases against him noted in the Kenya Gazette in these years, presumably for unpaid debts. However, he felt settled enough to marry. His wife was Louisa Kay, the daughter of Joseph Jay, carpenter in Outwood. She was born in 1885, and became friendly with Herbert Binks as a child. She went to Africa to marry Binks in Mombasa Cathedral in 1913, and the couple had a daughter and a son. Herbert, in a modern touch, adopted his wife’s maiden name as his middle name. Their daughter died in her teens and their son Paul was also to die young – on 8 September 1936, at the age of twenty. Both children are buried in Forest Road cemetery, Nairobi. Louise, or ‘Binkie’, was courteous and gentle and maintained a periodic correspondence with Buckingham Palace.
On the outbreak of World War I Binks joined the East African Pioneer Corps (10.9.1914) and then transferred to the East African Mechanical Transport Corps. He was awarded a medal and star for his services. At the end of the war we find him on jurors’ and voters’ lists for Nairobi South. He and his wife lived in a simple iron house on stilts on Kilimani Road, near the Ngong Road. Their reception room was dominated by a photo of a lion at dusk given them by the renowned Cherry Kearton, whom Binks had assisted on his photographic trips. Binks was very interested in astronomy and built an observatory with three telescopes in his garden, from which he took excellent photos of astronomical objects. He ground his own lenses and silvered his own mirrors. At one point he was consultant to the University of Leiden which was building an observatory near Mau summit. He was also something of an inventor, taking out patents for ‘improvements in internal combustion engines’ (Feb 1922, GB 175437) and ‘supporting surface for aircraft’ (3 Sept. 1931, GB 175437). Ron Bullock writes: ‘A number of his inventions in aerial photography were adopted by the RAF in WWII, a helicopter patent was bought up by Westland Aircraft (but to suppress it, much to his annoyance!)’ Binks built a plane with an airfoil wing and towed it down Sixth Avenue [Kenyatta Avenue] behind his motor bike in 1910. (For a description and picture of this plane, see Stephen Mills, Dreams, Schemes and Flying Machines, 2009, and The Leader, 3 December 1910.) It lay rotting in his garden, but he claimed that the design was picked up by Fokker during a hunting safari in 1913. His astronomy won him honorary life fellowship of the Royal Astronomical Society, and another award he achieved was appointment as OBE ‘for public services to Kenya’ (1950, Supplement to London Gazette, 8 June). On 5 September 1952 he travelled back to Kenya from England on the Durban Castle (first class) after receiving the FRAS and staying with the Astronomer Royal at Herstmonceux Castle.
Binks’s business burned down in 1945/6. He retained his strong Yorkshire accent to the end and was fiercely patriotic. By now his trademark moustache was pure white and he was renowned on Nairobi roads for his erratic gear-changing. He died at Nairobi Hospital on 30 June 1971, having been predeceased by his wife Louise on 1 May 1969. Ron Bullock writes, ‘His burial [at Forest Road cemetery] was attended by just a couple of old friends, and his former African servants were in the majority; it was a rather poignant scene as they laid their little posies of wild flowers on the grave.’ There was a small drama at Louise’s burial. Ron Bullock, who was there, writes ‘Louisa’s grave was “reopened”, because she was buried in the wrong block. It was during the ceremony that another family friend whispered to me that this was the wrong grave. Immediately following the interment, as the grieving and elderly Herbert was being led to the car, my friend Brian Yonge approached an official with this information and the workers were stopped from filling in any more of the soil pending investigation. According to the story I heard later, termites had been at the record books and had nibbled away part of the block number. There was a further ceremony that afternoon for “reopening” and reburial in the correct grave. Herbert was never told.’
Gazette - Voters List 1936 - Herbert Kay Binks, Photographer, Box 767, Nbi and Louise Kay Binks, Married woman, Box 767, Nbi
Gazette 18 July 1971 probate

Back to search results