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Name: OXFORD, Reginald

Birth Date: 30 Dec 1899 Camberwell

Death Date: 1979 Lambeth

First Date: 1923

Profession: Journalist - published 'The Kakamega Herald' at the time of the Gold Rush in the early 30s; law clerk 1923

Area: Nairobi, Kakamega, 1925 Nairobi, 1930 Box 380, Nairobi

Book Reference: Coast Causerie, KAD, Red 25, Red 31, Red 22

War Service: RNVR

General Information:

Coast Causerie - 'Some time ago I received a letter from a man named Reginald Oxford. There will be a few people who remember him. He is one of the former Kenya journalists who, in his prime, not only made a slim living but who started his own sheet, as did H.G. Robinson and Rennie Stevenson. But Oxford came into his own in the early 30s when gold was found at Kakamega. Taking advantage of the excitement of the time, Oxford published 'The Kakamega Herald', a medium quarto sheet that was a most popular seller. The weekly was supported by the local engineering firms and contained not only news of the mines but also had a strong vein of local and topical humour. ........ At the same time Reggie Oxford published 500 copies of 'Mining Hints' which were snapped up by all those farmers, beachcombers and haberdashers who gave up what they were doing and got to Kakamega as soon as they could.
Oxford was also Kenya correspondent for the 'African World' and as a sideline he printed each day a call-over slip which was distributed throughout the bars of Nairobi. His downfall was, so he says in his letter, occasioned by a drunken compositor who very often could set no more than a page of type a day, thus making all publications late. So Oxford sold the whole of his publishing business to Rennie Stevenson for £50.'
Red 22 - R. Oxford, Harrison, Cresswell & Hopley, Nairobi
KAD 1922 has R. Oxford, c/o Harrison (Solicitor), Nairobi
Gazette - Voters List 1936 - Nairobi South - Reginald Oxford, Merchant & Journalist, Kabete Road, Nbi

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