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Name: MITFORD-BARBERTON, Mary Layard, Mrs
Nee: Bowker
Birth Date: 26 Apr 1863 Cape Town
Death Date: 8 Mar 1928 Nanyuki, blackwater fever on safari in Laikipia
First Date: 1913
Last Date: 1928
Area: 'Caverndale' Mount Elgon
Married: At Bathurst, Eastern Cape 28 Mar 1894 Henry Barber [see under that name] (later Mitford-Barberton) 'Hal', her cousin
Children: Ivan Graham (1896-1976;, Raymond Berners (1897); Thane Renshaw (1901); Alban McGowan (1904-1983)
Book Reference: KFA, Curtis, Burke, Bowkers
General Information:
Gazette 6 Dec 1938 Trans Nzoia Voters List
Curtis - p. 118 - 'Trans Nzoia: The Mitford Barberton Family'
Bowkers - wife of Henry Mitford-Barberton, was the fourth child of Thomas Holden Bowker, and was born at Roeland Street, Capetown, on 26 April 1863. She learnt to read at a very early age, and showed that great love for literature which in later life often kept her reading nearly the whole night through. Like her father, she 'read mighty books while other people slept', ……………….. At 8 or 9 years of age she went with her parents to Kimberley, the town of tents, where her father was Land Commissioner and already fighting 'the Great Land Swindle'. They lived in a little tent he called 'Jonah's Gourd', off the Market Square. [more on her education at Huguenot Seminary in Wellington]
In 1894 Mary became engaged to her cousin Henry Mitford Barber and they were married the same year, on 28 March at Bathurst Church. Mary and Hal rode to the church on horseback, and away again after the ceremony. …[lots more on her life in South Africa and the birth of her children and then the move to Kenya]
Mother's sister Katie (Mrs Miles Egerton Bowker) came to Kenya just before the First World War. Miles helped Dad at 'Ivanhoe' (the Kyambu farm) while some of us were on active service in German East Africa. Mother and Katie loved each other most dearly, and it was a great comfort to Mother to have Katie living in the same district. Visits to 'Deckham', the Bowker farm in the Trans Nzoia, helped Mother to forget her loneliness after Dad's death. ………….. [more]
Mary Layard Mitford-Barberton is buried near the little Leki River, eleven miles west of Nanyuki in the wilderness. She died of blackwater fever while on safari in Laikipia and 'came into port greatly' on the 8 March 1928. Years before, when on a trip to Mount Kenya, Mother had exclaimed: "I should like to be buried in Laikipia, when I die." Thus was her wish fulfilled.
KFA - A remarkable pioneer in whose character a poetic streak mingled with the practical. .... (more) Buried on the Leki River 11 miles from Nanyuki.