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Name: LETHBRIDGE, John Acland Musgrave 'Jackie'

Birth Date: 28 Feb 1869 London

Death Date: 18 Apr 1934

First Date: 1905

Last Date: 1911

Profession: Rickshaw proprietor

Area: Nairobi

Married: 1. In Rathdrum, Kootenai, Idaho 5 Apr 1894 Florence Martin Cooper Miller (dignified and well bred American woman, marriage not a success, div. 1903) b. 1865 Milwaukee, d. 26 Oct 1931 Poole, Dorset; 2. Magdalen Dodington b. 1873 Dulverton, Somerset, d. 19 Apr 1932 Madeira, Chihuahua, Mexico

Children: Violet Martin (Lane) (1893 USA); Anne Gwendoline (28 Feb 1895 Vancouver-1978 Lewes, m. Guy Clavering Wetherall and Thorold Murray Smith); Phyllis Henrietta (1896 Lyndhurst, Hants.); Mabel Florence (1900 Minehead-1968 Wandsworth); Duncan John Leghe (15 Dec 1898 Porlock-1962 Honiton); Harold Reginald (19 May 1901 Wellington, Somerset-1972)

Book Reference: SE, Cuckoo, Nature, Nimrod, EAHB 1907, Chandler, Gazette

War Service: Gunners

General Information:

Stephen Ellis's ledger shows as Bad Debt
Cuckoo - Had been a captain in the Gunners, retiring after the Boer War - partnered John Egerton in the Norfolk Hotel Livery and Bait Stables in Nairobi - A most amusing pair and widely popular in Nairobi. The business did not prove a financial success. Lethbridge was an astute horse-dealer, and one had to be sharp when buying horses from him.
Nature - 'A famous character, well known in EA in the early days, had a lion which he kept for over two years. It was quite tame and very clever. It made an excellent and discriminating watchdog. Jackie used to keep it on the stoep of his bungalow and swore that the beast could distinguish between callers; he chased away importunate Indian itinerant merchants and people he knew his master did not like; but he welcomed his master's friends. He accompanied Jackie everywhere, into hotels and shops and rode beside him in his private rickshaw. He had the pleasant or unpleasant habit, depending on whether you were in the seat or between the shafts, of growling down the back of the rickshaw boy's neck if the pace slackened. Jackie used to boast that 'he had the fastest rickshaw in Nairobi!'  
Nimrod - a 'character' - moved up to Kenya in 1902 after the Boer War, and got himself a bungalow in Parklands. He made a lot of money, probably in ways that didn't bear too much looking into. He and his rival, Ali Khan, had a monopoly of all the rickshaws and buggies in Nairobi. ....... he was a terrific horseman, in the sense that he could do anything with horses, not just buy and sell them and ride them. He took 40 polo ponies to Abyssinia for Emperor Menelik as a gift from Sir Northrup Macmillan. ............ he was tight one night and climbed up the scaffolding of the Norfolk Hotel, which was being built, and sat there slinging newly laid tiles right and left yelling - "She loves me, she loves me not" at the top of his voice.
EAHB 1907 - Capt. J.M. Lethbridge - Nairobi (Norfolk Hotel)
Chandler - Jackie Lethbridge was a Boer War veteran who settled in East Africa in the early 1900s. He was notorious for keeping a full-grown pet lion on his front porch to deter visitors. An enthusiastic amateur hunter, Captain Lethbridge once, during a safari, rode 30 miles to get a doctor for a companion who had been badly ripped up by a lion. The first doctor he found was an Indian who was reluctant to make the distant house call (it was the middle of a monsoon) but Lethbridge forced him to come along at gunpoint. The doctor finally refused to cross a flooded river, collapsing and crying, "Shoot me!" So Lethbridge grabbed his medical supplies and swam the river on horseback. By the time the medical supplies arrived, however, his friend was fading fast, and Lethbridge and the dying man drank whisky until the end. Lethbridge left Africa shortly after, in 1911. He was the father-in-law of professional hunter Tom Murray Smith.
Gazette 1/7/1907 - Insolvency hearing - petition by Bertram Gray Allen on Captain John Acland Musgrave Lethbridge of Nairobi
Gazette 1/8/1907 - Declared Insolvent
The marriage seems to have failed by 1902 and wife had another dau, Bessie, by another father.
FindaGrave notes: Son of Esquire Wroth Acland and Annie Williams Lethbridge (née Benyon) Born 28 Feb 1869. Baptised on 29 Mar 1869 at St George, Hanover Square, London, Westminster. Married widow, Florence Martin Miller née Cooper on 5th April 1894 in Kootenai County, Idaho, USA. Witnesses E L Hemmingway and Frances G White. Divorce Petition filed 11 Feb 1903 Decree Nisi 15th June 1903 - On the grounds of her adultery with Harold Ickledon Webber and the birth of a child on 19th May 1901 whilst he had been at the front with the Imperial Yeomanry in South Africa from March 1900 returning on 20th September 1902. The Nisi was rescinded and petition dismissed on 15 Feb 1904 because of adultery on his part with Mrs Florence Finlinson.
FindaGrave Magdalen Dodington Lethbridge BIRTH unknown DEATH 19 Apr 1932 Mexico BURIAL Burial Details UnknownProbate: of Apartado 4 Madera Chihuahua Mexico (wife of John Acland Musgrave Lethbridge) died 19 April 1932 Probate London 23 January to the said John Acland Musgrave Lethbridge huntsman

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