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Name: WOODLEY, William James 'Bud'
Nee: probably son of Alfred George Woodley Snr.
First Date: 1910
Profession: Transporter, sawmiller, farmer
Area: Eldoret, 1912 Elgon, Sergoit, Hut - 1931 Eldama Valley Mill, Maji Mazuri
Married: Annie Melville 'Nan'
Book Reference: Eldoret, Hut, Stud, Racing, Red Book 1912, KAD, Red 25, Red 31, Red 22, Gazette, Medals
General Information:
Red 22 - W.J. Woodley, Box 21, Eldoret
Gazette - 7/4/15 - Liable for Jury service, Uasin Gishu Plateau - W.G. Woodley, Algao Saw Mills
Medals - Belfield's Scouts - William J. Woodley, No. 9588, Scout
Red 25 - Moyben Saw Mills, Sergoit
Gazette - 26/9/1923 - Voters Register - Plateau North - William James Woodley, Farmer Moiben Saw Mills
Gazette 6 Dec 1938 Uasin Gishu Voters Roll
Eldoret - came to these parts in 1910 with his father and at 76 is still hale and hearty [1967]. He remembers people trying to shoot out the lights in Eddie's Bar from the Pioneer Hotel. The Pioneer was opposite where McNaughton's Service Station is now and Eddie's Bar was the river side of Kay's Motors - some distance! There was a cinema below the Pioneer Hotel owned by Mrs Ortlepp. The Motor Mart building was put up by two people who won the Calcutta Sweep. The District Commissioner's house was then opposite the New Lincoln Hotel of today. The gardens next to Motor Mart were the old outspan for oxen, and below Motor Mart they could ford the river unless it was in spate, when they would go down to Hajee's Drift. The old road from Nairobi branched at Farm 35, 20 miles from "64", one road going to Sergoit and the other via Klapprott's farm and Plateau, to "64".
Mr Woodley first helped with transport and they would sling their beds, made of leather or hide straps in the form of a hammock, under the wagon bed. When I asked if he were not nervous of lion, he said they were more worried about hyena than lion. He said it took three days to Londiani in dry weather, but from three weeks to a month in the rains. In August 1912, he went through with the first settlers to Elgon and they took three weeks getting from Hoey's Bridge to Elgon. He took Mr MacDonald from America there whose son is still in Kitale and whose daughter married Mackie, the policeman. Working in the Algeyo Saw Mills in 1914, he said they supplied the timber for the new Wagon Wheel Hotel, previously Eldoret Hotel, Station Hotel, Waverley Hotel and the Wagon Wheel. Mr Boy was the policeman at Sergoit - at the Police Post overlooking the lake there. The building still stands today. A.C. Hoey was at Karuna then, and Style and Mills were the partners owning the sawmills.
EA Stud Book 1954 - Cattle - Ayrshires - Mrs N. Woodley, Eldoret
EA Stud Book 1954 - Pigs - Wessex Saddlebacks - Mrs N. Woodley, Eldoret
Racing - Owner of 'Pung' - 1929 - Mrs N. Woodley
Red Book 1912 - W.J. Woodley - Mombasa