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Name: DOUGLAS, Alexander 'Alec' 'A.D.' (Lieut.)
Nee: son of Haidee Jane Douglas, bro of David Rainy Douglas
Birth Date: 1888
Death Date: 2 Feb 1968 Thika
First Date: 1925
Profession: Early arrival in Nanyuki area with his brother David. It is said he acquired his farm from a man called Hope who had also sold some land to Billy Beale. Supply and Transport Officer, KAR
Area: Lewa Downs Nanyuki, NFD, 1925 Meru
Married: 14 Mar 1923 Elizabeth Sophy Cross b. 27 Jan 1896 Chelsea, d. 27 Aug 1963 Nairobi (she later m. in 1938 William Ernest Powys 1888-1978)
Children: Mary Fidelia 'Delia' (5 June 1924 Nairobi-12 June 2014 Timau) (m. David Neville Craig)
Book Reference: Foster, Red 25, Red 31, Hut, EAMR, Curtis, Red 22
War Service: Transport Officer with KAR during WW1, EAMR has A. Douglas C Sqdn. 9/11/14 - To EATC
General Information:
Foster - Alec's interest and skill in transport brought him into contact with Elizabeth Cross, (though their first recorded meeting was at a shooting party). Elizabeth had drawn, as a soldier settler, a farm at Makuyu, but the area was not at that time suitable for small scale mixed farming, and eventually the Bank foreclosed. Undaunted, Elizabeth rescued enough from the crash to start up business as a transporter from the railhead at Thika to Isiolo and beyond. Her courage soon became a legend which even the Samburu morans believed after a group of them had tried to steal some sugar from her. Elizabeth married Alec Douglas and they had a daughter, Delia. Later the marriage broke up, but Elizabeth remained in the Timau area managing the Llewellyn farm (Ol Donyo) in 1930 and 1931. In 1934 Elizabeth married Will Powys.
Curtis - p. 69 - 'Some Timau Farmers'
Red 22 - Northern Frontier District
Gazette 6 Dec 1938 Aberdare Voters List, farmer at Timau
Alec Douglas had foundedranch on Lewa Downs in 1922. Alec was a Scot who had trekked in an ox-cart from South Africa to Kenya (then British East Africa) in 1912. During the First World War he had served with the King’s African Rifles in Tanganyika, as a result of which he became eligible for the soldiers’ settlement scheme [BEADOC] whereby ex-servicemen could apply for land parcels in Kenya. He drew a plot on the northern slopes of Mount Kenya and began purchasing parcels of surrounding land as they became available, including a swamp area known as Lewa.
Meanwhile, Delia’s equally feisty mother, Elizabeth, the granddaughter of a viscount, served as an ambulance driver and nurse in Europe in the First World War. Within a few months of her arrival at the Front, a bomb scored a direct hit on the hospital where she was working, blowing off the soles of her feet. Despite her injuries, she managed to rescue scores of people, as a result of which she was awarded a Military Medal.
After the war Elizabeth, too, took advantage of the settlement scheme (her father gave her a shotgun and simply wished her “Good luck”). She drew a plot of land outside Nairobi and set out to become a cattle rancher. For a time, before she married Alec Douglas in 1923, she lived in a hut with only a horse and a white bull terrier for company.
Elizabeth’s and Alec’s marriage ended after Delia was born, and Elizabeth and Delia moved briefly to Tanganyika, returning to Kenya when Delia was five. Elizabeth subsequently remarried, to William Powys (brother of the writer John Cowper Powys), who owned a sheep farm adjacent to Alec Douglas’s estate and with whom she had a second daughter and two sons.
Langata cemetery, Nairobi Alexander Douglas died Thika 2 Feb 1968.
Gazette 23 Feb 1968 probate
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