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Name: MAYER, Rudolf Franz OBE

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Birth Date: 9 Feb 1874 Frakfurt am Main

Death Date: 26 Dec 1934 Nairobi

Nationality: German

First Date: 1900

Last Date: 1934

Profession: Bought Standard Printing & Publishing works, renamed EA Standard Company

Area: Managing Director, Nairobi, Published East African Standard, Mayor of Nairobi. 1930, 1930 Box 779, Nairobi

Married: During WW1 Mrs Emma Louise Antoinette Anderson 'Maia', née Trossaert de Tranqueville b. 28 Jan 1874, d. 17.4.1936

Children: Rudolph, Maia (Carbery)

Book Reference: Gillett, HBEA, KFA, Sorrenson, Samson, KAD, Red 25, Red 31, Hut, North, Curtis, Drumkey, Land, Red 22, EAHB 1906, Gazette, Barnes, Nicholls, Medals, EAHB 1904, EAHB 1907, Leader14, Aschan, Red Book 1912

War Service: Intelligence Officer 1915-18

School: Germany

General Information:

KFA - Mr W.H. Tiller started the 'East African Standard' in 1902 and sold it in 1905 to Messrs. Anderson and Rudolf Mayer, who moved it to Nairobi from Mombasa, where it had begun. (The first Nairobi issue was on Feb. 1st 1910)
Sorrenson - 'East African Standard' - The paper was started by Jevanjee in 1901 as the 'African Standard'. Jeevanjee sold it to Anderson and Meyer in August 1905, when it was renamed.
Red 25 - Member, Kenya Land Settlement Advisory Board; Steward, Jockey Club of Kenya, Committee Member, REAAA;
Red 25 - Vice-President, Kenya Arts & Crafts Society
Red 25 - Founder (1903) and Managing Director of the 'East African Standard'. Commissioned Officer in Intelligence Dept. 1915-18; Cavaliere of the Order of the Crown of Italy. Member, Institute of Journalists (England)
North - Ran "Grand Hotel", Mombasa with C.B.W. Anderson & his wife. Bought Standard Printing & Publishing Works & "African Standard" newspaper from A.M. Jeevanjee in 1903.
Curtis - 'A Voyage in s.s. Bajune, 1919' .... Captain Jim Belfrage, after serving in a number of Clan Line ships, came out from the United Kingdom to Kenya in 1919 to take up the offer of a good job. However, the job vanished while he was en route. He tells the story of the alternative employment he found.  'I met a man called Ambrose Smith who with Mayer of the EA Standard, Conway Harvey, and General Charrington had decided to start up a coastal service on the EA coast and I got the job as manager to start the company. It was called the East African Steam Navigation Company. Mayer, who was the leading light in this coastal venture, had gone down to Mombasa and bought a small twin screw steamer called 'Bajune'. She was really a river craft and had been used by an Italian firm on the Juba River until the British had taken her over to land troops on the German East African coast. She was in the battle of Tanga. ..…..'
Drumkey 1909 - Broker - Mombasa
Land - Leased 8998 acres at Kedong - Mrs M.R. Douglas [sic], passed to R.F. and M.L. Mayer and C.B.W., C.G.W. and R.E. Anderson, later sub-divided
Land - Mrs H.E. Bowker leased 9037 acres at Kedong, passed to R.F. and M.L. Mayer and C.B.W., C.G.W. and R.E. Anderson
Gazette - 7/4/15 - Liable for Jury service, Nairobi District - R.F. Mayer, The Standard
Nairobi Forest Road Cemetery - R.F. Mayer, British, age 60, died 26/12/34
Nicholls - WW1 - After the war there was an awkward discussion about whether Rudolf F. Mayer, of Anderson and Mayer, was an enemy alien, especially as he had served with British forces during the war, as an intelligence officer. This did not, however, save him and he was struck from the register of the Chamber of Commerce.
Gazette - Issued with Bird Licence at Mombasa during semester ending 30/6/1902
Nicholls - he himself had been discriminated against, as a German, during and after the First World War and twice had his application to join Nairobi Club turned down, it is odd that he lacked sympathy for other victims of discrimination.
Medals - East African Intelligence Department - Rudolf F. Meyer, Honorary Lieutenant
North - arr. Zanzibar with A.G.W. Anderson 29-12-1900; running 'The Grand Hotel' Mombasa with A.G.W. Anderson & his wife 1901;
EAHB 1904 - Mombasa & Kilindini Residents - Mayer, R. - Proprietor, Grand Hotel, Macdonald Terrace
Mills - Rudolf Frans Mayer was born in 1874 and educated in Germany. Arriving in East Africa in 1900 he formed 'The Mombasa Trading and Development Syndicate Ltd.' with Alfred Anderson. In 1902, the new company purchased the thriving Grand Hotel from a Greek gentleman who went 'missing' in the interior. The Grand Hotel was a very elegant white 2 storey building with arched verandahs on the ground and first floor and it boasted 'bathrooms', hot and cold water and 20 bedrooms and a 'Lux' system of lighting.
Conveniently attached to the Grand Hotel was the Colonial Store, also owned by Anderson and Mayer, which was a safari outfitter and general merchant and where newcomers shopped for the khaki clothes, sun helmets and spine-pads they all felt were essential in the tropics, especially the women who arrived in their long Edwardian skirts, tight ruffled blouses and feathered hats. …………….
The successful young partnership was to continue however, and in 1903 they purchased the 'African Standard' in Mombasa from A.M. Jevanjee, a very rich Parsee contractor and general merchant for £50. In 1904, Anderson and Mayer attempted to automate Mombasa's tramway system. The trolley idea had begun as a project of the IBEA company, when Mackinnon and his partners had proposed to build a light railway into the hinterland. Anderson & mayer made a bid for control of the Mombasa tramway. They took over management in 1904 and in July that year put their new 12-seater tramcar on the rails. It had been built of timber in their own workshops and, 'pending the arrival of mechanical power' was drawn by a horse. ……….. [more]
In August 1914, as martial law was proclaimed in the Protectorate, Rudolf Mayer was interned by the authorities and his East African Standard printing works, having moved to Nairobi in 1910, was used for printing of war propoganda. Mayer was also struck-off the members list of the Nairobi Chamber of Commerce. On his release from detention a short while later, he volunteered for Col. Meinertzhagen's Intelligence Corps serving with the likes of Grogan and Northrup McMillan in GEA. ………………….. Mr Mayer became a member of the Municipal Council in 1929 and was elected Mayor of Nairobi in 1931. ……….. ……… died in Nairobi in 1934 at the age of 60 years.
Aschen - 1914 - One evening Blix was sitting on the verandah of the Norfolk Hotel having a drink with Walter Shapley, a prominent lawyer with a marked Teutonic appearance, and Arnold Meyer, editor of the 'East African Standard' newspaper, born a German Jew and now a naturalized British subject. Dark, hostile looks in their direction caused Shapley, a man of humor, to react in his unmistakeable, booming voice: "We seem to be the three most suspicious characters here this evening. You, Meyer, are German. I look like one, and Blix here, God knows what he is!"
Red Book 1912 - R.F. Mayer - Nairobi
Red Book 1912 - Committee Member - Masara Hunt Club
Gazette 1/6/1913 - Dissolution of Partnership - Notice is hereby given that the partnership lately subsisting between us, the undersigned Alfred Gerald Wright Anderson, Maia Anderson and Rudolf Franz Mayer, carrying on business at Nairobi, Mombasa and elsewhere in the East Africa Protectorate under the style or firm of "Anderson and Mayer" has been dissolved by mutual consent as from the first day of April 1913, so far as regards the said Alfred Gerald Anderson who retires from the firm. All debts due to or owing by the said late firm will be received and paid by the said Maia Anderson and Rudolf Franz Mayer who will continue the said business under the present style or firm of "Anderson and Mayer".
Samson - 1927 - Mr Meyer (sic) the leading journalist of the Colony.
Red 25 - Committee member, Nairobi Chamber of Commerce
Gazette - 1/6/1913 - Dissolution  of Partnership between Alfred Gerald Wright Anderson, Maia Anderson and Rudolph Franz Mayer carrying on business under the style of Anderson and Mayer. Retirement of Alfred Gerald Anderson. Business to be carried on by Maia Anderson and Rudolf Franz Mayer.
Gazette 28 Apr 1936 wife's probate d. 17 Apr 1936
 

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