Who's Who - Apptd. Min for Local Govt. Health & Housing April 1955. Member Legco for Kiambu. Past Vice-Pres. Electors Union (Kenya). Chairman W. Boyd & Co. (Printers) Ltd., Dir. EA Breweries Ltd., Grosvenor Hotel Ltd., etc. etc.

Mischief - worked under Lord Erroll when he was Military Secretary - "I saw him as an executive; he was a demanding man, brilliant at his job.'

Who's Who 1981 - Elected to Kenya Legco 1948; Chairman European elected Members 1952; Mem., Kenya Executive Council 1952; Minister for Local Govt. 1954; Minister for Agriculture 1962-3; Dep. Chmn. Agricultural Finance Corp. Kenya 1964- etc. Dir. Bamburi Portland Cement Co. 1974

East Africa & Rhodesia - 22/5/52 - Mr W.B. Havelock, a candidate in the Kiambu constituency, who was born in 1912, arrived in East Africa at the age of 8 and, after some years in Uganda and Kenya, was educated at the Imperial Service College, Windsor. Returning to Kenya in 1929, he spent the next decade in business and Governement service, and then started farming in the Limuru district. On the outbreak of war he became secretary to the Kenya Defence Force Tribunal and the Director of Man-Power, before undergoing his training in the Kenya Regiment. He served with the 3/4 KAR and at the Command Battle School, Nakuru. ……

Mills - Wilfred Havelock was born on the 14th April 1912 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, West Indies. His father was a Presbyterian minister and his mother's people were long-time sugar farmers in Trinidad. At the outbreak of the First World War, Sir Wilfred's father resigned his ministry, joined the Royal Fusiliers and was killed on the Somme when Sir Wilfred was 5 years old. The loss of his father so early on in his life had a profound effect on him. In 1919, Sir Wilfred's mother remarried an Australian who joined the Colonial Service and was posted by the British Government as the Asst. DC in Kampala. Thus he arrived in Uganda via Kenya at the age of 7 years.

Sir Wilfred schooled at the Kenya Grange at Lumbwa, near Kericho, to which he used to travel by steamer across Lake Victoria and then by train and donkey.The Kenya Grange was the forerunner of Kenton College. After his primary education Sir Wilfred left Kenya for 5 years during which time he never saw his mother. He lived with an aunt in Sussex, England and attended secondary school at the Imperial Service College at Windsor outside London. The school later amalgamated with Haileybury College.

He attained what he described as a 'modest School Certificate' and returned to Kenya permanently in 1929. His first job was for a 2 month period in a timber yard at Nanyuki but thereafter he joined the Shell Company and after initial training in Nairobi and Mombasa, he was posted to Nakuru as the company's Installation Manager on £15 per month. Sir Wilfred had a varied career. He resigned from the Shell Company while working at its depot in Kisumu and started his own garage and fishing business there. Unfortunately both enterprises failed and Sir Wilfred was abandoned by his partner leaving debts of nearly £800 that took him 8 years to pay off.

He then worked on the Kakamega goldfields from 1933-35 as a milkman, forester, prospector and assayer until he took on more stable employment in Nairobi with the Civil Service. He was the Chief Officer of the Nairobi Prison and later the Assistant to the Director of Manpower Development. After the outbreak of the Second World War, Sir Wilfred underwent officer training with the Kenya Regiment at Eldoret, joined the 3rd/4th King's African Rifles and saw brief action in Ethiopia before being invalided out with amoebic dysentery. Thereafter he spent the remainder of the war as a Training Officer. After the War, Sir Wilfred, having been left a little money by his grandmother, bought a small farm at Limuru that he developed for pyrethrum and dairy. He began to take an interest in politics and in 1948, was elected as the Legislative Council member for Kiambu which seat he held for 11 years. He was elected as member for Nairobi South West in the first multi-racial election of 1959. He was appointed Minister for Local Government, Health and Housing in 1952, later serving as Minister for Lands and finally from 1960-63 as Minister for Agriculture.

Together with Sir Michael Blundell and others, he was a member of the New Kenya Group, Kenya's first multi-racial party that, together with others, held just a sufficient number of seats in Legco to oversee the transition to independence despite considerable opposition from the European settlers. In July 1962, H.M. the Queen knighted Sir Wilfred for his services to Kenya. ………….. [more including buying Lawfords hotel and other coast interests]

In 1985 Sir Wilfred sold his hotel interests at the Coast and moved to Nairobi where he was Chairman of Trustees at Gertrude's Garden Children's Hospital (1984-98), overseeing a complete modernisation programme for the hospital. He was also Chairman of the Union Insurance Co. of Kenya.

Sir Wilfred was married twice. Firstly in 1938 to 'Wink' Pershouse and they had a son Johnny born in 1944. That marriage ended in divorce in 1967 and he married for the second time to Pat Mumford, as she then was, in 1972. In 1999, Pat contracted Alzheimer's disease requiring full time nursing. She and Sir Wilfred moved to the Canini health Facility at Athi River where they resided up until their deaths in january and April 2002 respectively. - Johnny Havelock