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Name: SILVESTER, James Mostyn
Birth Date: 20 Feb 1891 Bath
Death Date: 1 July 1967 Ottershaw
First Date: 1914
Profession: Admin. officer, Asst DC Kiambu 1921
Area: Nairobi, 1922 Kiambu, 1925 Meru, 1930 Machakos
Married: In Durban 6 May 1920 Sheelagh Mary Kathleen Darragh b. 9 Oct 1895 Johannesburg, d. 1982 Chichester
Children: May Constance Patricia (13 Sep 1921 Nairobi); John Darragh Mostyn (23 May 1933-1996); Patricia (married F. H. Goldsmith of the Prince of Wales School); son (Apr 1935)
Book Reference: Gillett, Scott, Tignor, KAD, Red 25, Red 31, Hut, Red 22, O&C, Gazette, Dominion, Nicholls, Witchmen, Red 19
School: Jesus College Oxford 1910-13; BA Oxon
General Information:
Gazette - 25/2/14 - appt. Asst. DC Machakos
Dominion - District Officer - 1930
Scott - Sec. of the EA Professional Hunters' Ass. in 1953.
Tignor - DC Machakos in 1928-29-30.
KAD 1922 - Asst. District and Resident Commissioner, Kiambu.
Hut has G.M. Silvester 1919 Asst. DC Kisumu
Gazette 28/1/1914 - Arrived on 1st Appointment - Asst. Dist. Commissioner - 14/1/1914
Gazette - 12/11/1919 - Register of Voters - Lake Area - James Mostyn Silvester - Government Official - Kisumu
Gazette - 10/8/1921 - Register of Voters - Kikuyu Area - Sheelah Mary Kathleen Silvester - Married - Kiambu
Gazette 6 Dec 1938 Kiambu Voters List
Nat Probate Calendar
Charles Chenevix Trench, Men Who Ruled Kenya, 1993 One of the 1913 intake, he was a great man for the Kamba and fluent in their language. On safari the porters, with their headloads carried on pads of banana leaves, sang as they marched, one half answering the other half. Sylvester and his wife translated hymns into Swahili and Kamba and sang these while the men beat time on water-tins. Their little daughter travelled on a mono-wheel, a sort of chair running on a single bicycle wheel with handles fore an aft by which one porter pulled and the other pushed. Sylvester caused 2,500 acres of bare hilltops to be planted with young trees and closed to livestock, to check erosion where it started. In 1930 he drove in a T- model Ford to see the first borehole in the district being sunk, to water both cattle and his trees.