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Name: GREY, Olive 'Guanapoo' 'Major Grey', Mrs

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Nee: born Matilda Elizabeth, daughter of Humphrey Sylvester Gainey

Birth Date: 10.12.1855 Tamworth, Australia

Death Date: 20 Oct 1920 Poona, India

Nationality: Australian

First Date: 1895

Last Date: 1905

Profession: One of the first Salvation Army Officers in the field in EA.

Area: Mombasa, Freretown, Taru Camp, Nairobi

Married: 1877 William Dickson

Children: Violet May (1884)

Author: 'The Silver Greyhound & The Boer Bloodhound; or the Relief of Kimberley' 1903

Book Reference: Gillett, Genesis, North, Nicholls, EAS, Old Africa Nicholls blog, Land 1903, Gazette, EAHB 1904, EA Diary 1903

General Information:

Genesis - 'while camped at Taru I had a visit from our first Salvation Army Lass, who ventured out to East Africa. Dolly Grey came out to minister to the African savage and although the country was far too unsettled in those days for a white woman being permitted to venture into the interior alone, our Dolly Grey found ample scope for her missionary work on the Mombasa island; and during the smallpox epidemic was a true ministering angel to the Africans in the segregation camp.
North - Railhead, Taru camp April 1897 working as nurse; Proprietress of the EA Mail, Mombasa June 1899, calling herself "Mrs Grey" & living with Charles Palmer. Declared bankrupt 13/3/1901 Mombasa; working as a journalist in Nairobi Dec 1902
Nicholls - the East Africa and Uganda Mail begun by Olive Grey in Mombasa in 1899 but discontinued in 1904. Olive Grey had been Major Grey of the Salvation Army in India, where she wore Indian dress, and then she moved to Australia where she was known as 'Guanapoo'. She lived with a Eurasian, Charles Palmer.
North - Formerly with the Salvation Army in India & Australia; arr. EA May 1896; at Machakos staying with Stuart Watt 8/13-7-1897; moved from Mombasa to Nairobi Sept 1897; Not in EA Jan 1898; successfully sued Postmaster T.E.C. Remington over his refusal to release 500 Rs sent to her from Australia in the name of 'Guanapoo' - 'While living in India she wore the dress of an Indian woman and was known there by the name of 'Guanapoo' a name which had previously been given to her, as she tells us, by some Indians who visited her in Australia' (Cator, FO2) 16-8-1899; ' Mrs Grey, who lives with a black man' (F.J. Jackson, FO 2); 'Mrs Grey is a damsel of uncertain age and excited disposition' (McGregor-Ross, RH); 'Formerly a Major in the Salvation Army and previous to that was living a questionable life in Karachi' (Marsden, FO 2); references to her as 'Dolly Grey' in "The Iron Snake" by Ronald Hardy are fictional
North - travelled with Robert Turk to Taru camp dep. Mombasa 5/10/1896; returned to Mombasa after the death of Capt. Muldoon in Taru desert. Stayed at Freretown
Gazette - 1-4-1901 - Bankruptcy Jurisdiction - Mrs Olive Grey - Whereas by order of the above-mentioned Court dated 13th of March I have been appointed Receiver of the estate of the above-mentioned debtor. .….….……  A general meeting of creditors will be held at the Office of the Registrar at 2pm on the 23rd of April 1901. The public Examination of the Debtor will be held in the above-mentioned Court at 9.30am on the 20th of April. - Signed Skinner Turner - Receiver.
The African Standard - 26-2-1903 - Invited to the wedding of H.R. Phelips & Miss Jacquette Edith Lambe in Mombasa
Old Africa - 18-11-13 - Christine Nicholls - Olive Grey is a woman of mystery who led an unusual life, and it has been fascinating finding out about her. She was born Matilda Elizabeth Gainey in December 1855, in Tamworth, NSW, Australia, the daughter of Humphrey Sylvester Gainey and Mary Thorpe. She was baptised as a Roman Catholic in West Maitland, New South Wales. She married William Dickson in 1877 and had a daughter Violet May in 1884. She became a missionary in India, and some of her letters are in the Coral Missionary Magazine in 1878 (pages 28, 77 and 122). She returned to Australia and took over the care of one of her sister Honoria’s step-children (there were ten of them) He was Ernest William Griffin (born on 23 January 1875), and she took him back to India with her in 1879 or 1880. But her daughter Violet did not seem to accompany them. It is not clear whether her husband died or when she assumed the name Olive Grey. Did she marry someone called Grey?
Ernest (who was calling himself Grey rather than Griffin at this stage) returned to Australia and got married in 1895 – to May Ellen Murray, in Sydney. But the marriage was not a success (it was eventually dissolved in 1902) and Ernest went to East Africa, to join Olive. He was there in 1899, whereas we know Olive was there in 1895, working as a ‘typewriter’. By 1897 she was with the missionary Stuart Watt in Machakos. Now there appears another man in her life – Charles Palmer, an Anglo-Indian. It is not known if Olive and Charles were married, but they lived together. Charles had arrived in East Africa in February 1892, working for the Imperial East Africa Company customs and shipping department. When the British government took over IBEA he continued to work for the government, as assistant customs collector and deputy governor of Mombasa prison (1898). Apparently he was sacked and we find him cutting timber for the Uganda Railway in 1901. The following year he started up the firm of Palmer & Grey with Ernest Grey, who had returned to India and married again – to Eunice Adelaide Powell, in Bombay, in 1902. Then back came Ernest to East Africa and resumed the surname Griffin; he worked as an auctioneer in Mombasa and he and his wife had a daughter in Mombasa in 1904 – Ethel Gladys. Eventually they were to have six children. Ernest was joined by his father William Griffin in 1905 and brother Sydney Gordon Griffin, who worked for the East Africa Syndicate and lived at Naivasha, in 1904.
Olive and Charles decided to start the first East African weekly newspaper in 1899 in Mombasa – the East Africa and Uganda Mail. It is sometimes said that the Taveta Chronicle was East Africa’s first newspaper, but in fact it was really a parish magazine, produced only intermittently. Olive was the Editor of the East Africa and Uganda Mailand she proved to have an acerbic pen. Some members of the European community took against her – she ‘lives with a black man’, said Frederick Jackson, referring to Palmer’s Anglo-Indian heritage. ‘I believe Palmer & Grey … were a couple of bad eggs’, said McGregor-Ross. While in India in Karachi Olive had dressed as an Indian lady and was known by the name Gaunapoo. Palmer also crossed the powerful Indian businessman A.M. Jeevanjee, becoming a rival for him on a railway oil contract. Olive used the Mail to castigate Jeevanjee, and so provoked him that in 1901 he started his own newspaper, the Standard, which morphed into the East African Standard. The Standard won a case of libel against the Mail, and soon it began to outsell the original newspaper.  Finally, in 1904 the Mailwas declared bankrupt and ceased publication.
This was the second time Olive was bankrupt in East Africa – the first was in 1901. She returned to India with Charles, probably in 1905. She wrote a novel under the name Olive Grey entitled The Van Tit Willow Tribe, or the Vagaries of an Irresponsible Editor (Mombasa, Palmer & Grey, 1903). The Phenomenal Rise of the Rat is another book she wrote. Ernest probably went to India at the same time (he was there in 1906), while his father and half-brother returned to Australia by 1910. Ernest went back to Australia post-1910 and resumed the surname Griffin. He became a bookkeeper, mail officer and photographer and served in World War I, taking part in the Gallipoli landings. He died in Redfern, Sydney, on 20 January 1931. ‘Gulligimbi’, the home built by his father William, is still standing north of Jackson in Western Queensland. We don’t know when or where Olive died, but she was alive in India in 1914, living in Warangal, Deccan.
Gazette - 15/6/1902 - Notice - Sale of Licences under 'The Opium Regulations 1902'. To be sold by Messrs Palmer & Grey at their premises, Ndia Kuu, Mombasa on the 30th day of June next in the forenoon - A Licence to sell Opium, at any one place in the Town of Mombasa [and a Licence to sell Opium in Nairobi and to grow poppies]
Nicholls - the East Africa and Uganda Mail begun by Olive Grey in Mombasa in 1899 but discontinued in 1904. Olive Grey had been Major Grey of the Salvation Army in India, where she wore Indian dress, and then she moved to Australia where she was known as 'Guanapoo'. She lived with a Eurasian, Charles Palmer.
EA Diary 1903 - Advert for 'Palmer and Grey' - Proprietors "East Africa and Uganda Mail"; Estate Agents; Government Auctioneers; Printers, Publishers, Booksellers and Bookbinders; Government Timber and Railway Fuel Contractors
EA Diary 1902 - Similar Advert to the above
EAHB 1904 - Advert for 'Palmer and Grey' - Proprietors "East Africa and Uganda Mail" (Established 1899) - The first paper ever published in Mombasa, East Africa, and Having the widest Circulation …….. etc etc. As above
Land Grant 1903 - Palmer & Grey - Shop building plot, 50 ft. by 50 ft. and 3 shop
building plots 45 ft. by 50 ft. and Butcher's stall, 75 ft. by 60 ft. - Kisumu, first
crossed - Oct. & Nov. - Leasehold
 

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