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Name: DUNCAN, Robert Brownlie

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Birth Date: 13 Nov 1874 Wishaw, Lanarkshire

Death Date: 13 Jan 1930 Edinburgh

First Date: 1913

Profession: Manager of the main Grocery, Provision & Wine & Spirit concern. In 1919 he started his own business in Nairobi which flourished until ill health through overwork forced him to retire.

Area: Nairobi, 1925 Box 98, Nairobi

Married: 1. In Kilpatrick, Bute 1902 Margaret Ann Lawson b. 1885, d. Edinburgh 18 May 1948; 2. ?

Children: 1. Margaret Agnes 'Rita' (17 July 1903 Dunbartonshire-3 Oct 1983); Robert Archibald (24 Aug 1905 Dumbarton-30 Nov 1972 Nairobi); Olive Beatrice (11 May 1908 Dumbarton-3 Oct 1987); Lilias Semple (4 Nov 1909 Dumbarton-1 Dec 1911 Dumbarton); Norman Lawson (21 Oct 1912 Glasgow-8 Feb 1999 Somerset West, S. Africa); Ivan Douglas Haig (5 Aug 1916 Nairobi-31 Dec 2004 Nairobi); Irene Beaton (21 July 1919-29 Oct 1942 at sea on MV Abosso) 2. Hamish (16 July 1942 Nairobi)

Book Reference: Gillett, KAD, Red 25, Red 31, Macmillan, Red 22, Gazette

General Information:

He first engaged in the grocery trade in Glasgow, then established his own business at Clydebank but became so interested in the potentiality of EA that he sold his business and emigrated with his family to Nairobi.
Macmillan - 1930 - Personality is a great asset in all business undertakings, and is probably more responsible for success than anything else. Mr R.B. Duncan, "The Grocer" of Nairobi, certainly has it, and is accordingly making hs influence felt in the important trade in which he has spent his entire career. He was apprenticed to it in Glasgow, and after serving with some of the best known grocery and provision firms in Scotland, he started in business for himself at Clydebank, where he built up a successful concern. Then he became interested in Great Britain's youngest and most wonderful colony on the Equator, and was so struck with its potentialities and opportunities that he sold his Clydebank business, and emigrated with his family to Nairobi, where he became manager of the then chief grocery, provison, wine and spirit concern in the town. Always ambitious, he eventually started in 1919 in trade on his own account by opening in Government Road a small shop that soon became inadequate ….. He finally became installed in his present handsome and commodious place.
Gazette - 7/4/15 - Liable for Jury service, Nairobi District - R.B. Duncan, Mackinnon Bros.
Gazette - 12/11/1919 - Register of Voters - Nairobi, South Area - Robert Brownlie Duncan - Grocer's Assistant, Hurlingham Road and Mrs Margaret Anne Duncan - Hurlingham Road
Gazette - 10/6/1930 - Probate and Administration - Robert Brownlie Duncan who died in Scotland on or about 16 January 1930
Gazette - 6/2/1924 - Voters Register - Nairobi South - Mrs Margaret Ann Duncan, Married Kikuyu Road
Gazette 18 May 1948 wife's probate

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