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Name: MARRIOTT, John
Birth Date: 12.7.1899 Cropwell Butler, Notts
Death Date: 1968 Dover
First Date: 1916
Last Date: 1951
Profession: Farm student, sisal plantation work at Makindu, Paulin [?Pauling] Engineers building Mombasa port, railway from Tabora-Kampala, KUR&H for 33 years. Archivist at Foreign Office after leaving Kenya.
Area: Molo, Mackinnon Road, Nairobi
Married: 1. Frances Alexandra b. 1915; 2. In Hampstead 1947 Marjorie Houghton-Roberts b. 15 Mar 1904 Peterborough, d. 1 June 2001 Andover (prev. m. to Geoffrey Shaw b. 1898)
Children: John; Joan Mary (28 July 1934 Mombasa)
Book Reference: EAWL, Red 25, Red 31, Hut, Red 22
School: Governess & Tutor, Nottingham High School, Reading University, Nottingham University
General Information:
Came to East Africa for health reasons, he was quite healthy but too tall for his weight ..... started as a farm student with Powys-Cobb, a family friend who had 25,000 acres up beyond Londiani. They 'rode the range' from 6.30 am. 10,000 head of cattle and 9,000 sheep. After some 4-5 years the Govt. changed the African rupee into the shilling and the settlers were ruined overnight in many cases. Cobb said he couldn't afford to keep him as, by now, he was a manager. Then he went to a coffee farm and then to Mackinnon Road in charge of a sisal factory having done an extra-mural engineering course through a University. That failed and he became a manager for Paulin & Co. and was in charge of building Mombasa docks and later the railway from Kampala to Tororo (where he got blackwater fever).
By this time recession had set in and Paulin had no more work in EA - so my husband loathed to return to UK as he had, by now, been in Kenya for about 15 years (By the way he went to Reading University during Powys Cobb days and read Dairy Science etc).
There was no future in farming though and he applied for a post with EAR&H and was with them from 1938 to 1951 - when Mau Mau was too active for comfort and we had John down for a school in UK (He is now a surgeon) and my husband could retire at 55 anyway. He retired at 50. We had had enough of Kenya and he knew that 55 meant more difficulty in getting a job. He got into the Foreign Office and was an archivist in the Historical Dept. and worked as a member of the team that was editing the German Reichstag documents - these had been brought to UK when Russia took root in Berlin in 1948 (400 tons!). When the peace treaty was finalised in 1958 (I think) the Germans demanded the documents back and they transferred to Bonn. By this time my husband was 60, so he resigned, but did a job in London for a stockbroker friend in the City - redoing their register - we moved to Hampstead and he finally retired to Dover at 63 years where he died in 1968. Source:- Mrs M. Marriott
Red 25 - J. Marriott, BEA Fibre & Industrial Co., Kibwezi