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Name: HARRIES, Herbert Michael 'Jock' 'Black' (Capt.)
Birth Date: 29 June 1883 Dhursala, Bengal, India
Death Date: 13 Feb 1954 Naivasha
First Date: 1903 (Hut 1906)
Last Date: 1954
Profession: Established farm. Land Grant 1903 - H.M. Harries - Agricultural, 640 acres - Kiambu - Dec 28 - Freehold - Homestead
Area: Kiambu, 'Larmudiac' Njoro, Solai
Married: In Marylebone 1924 Gwendoline Alice Grace Prettejohn née Howell, b. 4 Aug 1876 Bangalore, India, d. 20 May 1953 Solai (prev. m. to Richard Buckley Prettejohn 1877-1949)
Children: There were 4 children from the Prettejohn marriage
Book Reference: Gillett, Land 1903, Red 25, Red 31, Hut, Drumkey, Red 22, Stud, Nellie, Midday Sun, Gazette, Nicholls, North, SS, Red Book 1912, Barnes
War Service: Royal artillery
General Information:
Black Harries, so called because of his swarthy countenance and bushy black beard.
Gazette 6 Dec 1938 Rift Valley Voters List has Gwendolene
EA Stud Book 1954 - Arabian Brood Mares - Capt. H.M. Harries (1943)(1944)
EA Stud Book 1954 - Arabian Stallions - Owners - Estate of late Capt. H.M. Harries
Nellie - Farther west along the forest boundary from Gikammeh was a lovely farm, or ranch, called Larmudiac, large even by African standards, belonging to a Welsh couple called Harries. He was known as Black Harries because of his big black beard. (Nellie) 'Their life-style was eccentric. They lived like the pigs they grew, only didn't house themselves as well as they did the pigs. But inside an awful house - if you were bold enough to go to lunch there - you found an enormous, genuine refectory table, about 16 really good Chippendale chairs, Black Harries carving a colossal hunk of meat at one end of the table and Ma Harries dismembering innumerable fowls at the other.
Black Harries was immensely strong, and once pulled a wounded leopard backwards by the tail out of a bush, saying: 'It's a cat, so it will pull away from me.' Then he finished it off by a blow on the head. One day, I was having trouble putting some of my young stock through the cattle dip. Harries happened to come by: he picked up a three-quarters grown steer which had got back to front in the dip, lifted it right off its legs, swung it round to face the right way and pushed it into the dip.
The savagery they lived in! Such a mixture. Fierce dogs biting guests on arrival, the lovely Chippendale chairs, and dirt everywhere. Worse was to come when they moved from Larmudiac to another vast holding in Solai. You walked up to the house, or hut, ankle deep in animal bones. When you sat down to a meal you had to push Muscovy ducks off the Chippendale chairs. A hatch was opened between kitchen and living-room and an indescribable, utterly horrible stench belched forth, followed by the food.
The Harries' bedroom, a large rondavel, was shared between the marital bed and a large, probably 500-egg, incubator. The roof above was lined with a tarpaulin to keep the incubator, not the Harrieses dry.' Midday Sun - 'His attitude towards his labour was the reverse of permissive, and he was on bad terms with some of his neighbours, including Ingrid [Lindstrom] and Nellie [Grant]; he conducted against them a war of chits which would arrive at all hours with messages such as 'Your squatters' cattle have broken into my maize' or ' I have reason to believe that you are sheltering one of my boys who has run away and is hiding on your land.'
Letter from John Pollard - A big black-bearded character who was said to have beaten an African to death.
Pioneers - Nakuru - Nellie Grant - Black Harries - He had a passion for horses, and let them roam freely over his many acres, breeding as they wished; he never gelded them, and they built up to enormous numbers. Nor did he feed them either, and in times of drought they became half-starved or did starve, and their skeletons lay mouldering (and stinking) in the bush. Nor were they broken in.
Gazette - 26/8/1914 - Appt. - Herbert Michael Harries, Volunteer Forces, East Africa Regiment, with the rank of Lieutenant, to date August 13th 1914
Gazette - 4/11/1914 - Appt. - KAR - Temporary Commission - To be Lieutenant - Lieutenant H.M. Harries, EAR, Late Royal Artillery and 4th Batt. KAR
Nicholls - When the farmer H.M. Harries found an African beating a valuable pig, he flogged the man so badly that he was in hospital for 3 months. Harries was charged with giving him over 100 strokes and pleaded guilty to inflicting 'simple hurt' under extreme provocation. The jury accepted his plea and recommended mercy, but the judge demurred and Harries served 3 months in prison.
North - Land Grant application, Kiambu 28-12-1903
Soldier Settlement Scheme after WW1 - Class B - Capt. H.M. Harries, Hilton, Roch R.S.O., Pembrokeshire - Farm 730 Soldier Settlement Scheme after WW1 - Class B - Lieut.-Col. S.K. Harries, Hilton, Roch R.S.O., Pembrokeshire - Farm 732 ??
Soldier Settlement Scheme after WW1 - Class B - Mrs C.R. Harries, Hilton, Roch, R.S.O., Pembrokeshire - Farm 739 Red Book 1912 - H.M. Harries - Naivasha
Gazette 25/8/1920 - High Court Criminal Case - Crown vs Herbert Michael Harries at Nakuru.
Nakuru North cemetery - Herbert Michael Harries, 1876 [incorrect]-1954, RIP and his wife Gwendolen Alice Grace 1877-1953
Old Africa - 21-9-12 - Christine Nicholls - I am reminded of H.M. (‘Black’) Harries and his family, about whom Elspeth Huxley’s mother Nellie was so funny. Black Harries was a firm believer in heat treatment for arthritis. He got into bed with five labradors on top and a bottle of port. His wife, enthusiastic about his ideas, had her own version of treatment. A visitor, having been told that she was in the garden, could not find her. He returned to the kitchen where the cook directed him to look just to the left of a little gateway. There he found a large compost heap, with a hat on top, and, beneath the heap, Mrs Harries. Black Harries used to say, ‘I have a bath once a month, whether I need it or not.’
Black Harries owned the neighbouring farm to Nellie at Njoro. After he had been jailed for six weeks he went to South Africa, selling the farm on easy terms to Cockie Birkbeck, who married Blor Blixen. But Cockie was too idle to send the quarterly cheque, so the farm reverted to Harries, who returned to Kenya. Nellie said she had to shoo the ducks off the Chippendale chairs if she visited the Harries house.