He laid out the grounds of Sagana Lodge, presented to Princess E. as wedding gift

Nellie - (1936) - 'Sharpie' was an unusual DC. White-haired, rubicund and inclined to stoutness, he had joined the Colonial Service rather late in life and had no wish whatever to elbow his way along the corridors of power to become a chief secretary, or even governor of some far-flung Colony. All his interests lay in birds, plants and gardens. Every station to which he was posted he embellished with green lawns, flowering shrubs, indigenous trees and, if he had half a chance, tinkling streamlets diverted from the nearest river. ......... The garden he created at Rumuruti became famous ........ Here you might be introduced to Dicksee, the elephant he had reared from a baby who wrestled with him in his sitting room and browsed on scarlet cannas by the stream (She went subsequently to the London zoo).                                                   Midday Sun - 'From 1926 onwards he was stationed in the NFD which, with the adjoining district of Turkana, occupied an area about half the size of Kenya and considerably larger than that of the United Kingdom. ....... (story of a safari with Nellie and E. Huxley in 1937) ............. 'Not plants only, but birds, beasts, the people and every aspect of this vast, hard-hearted, sun-baked country were familiar to him. He had entered the Colonial Service by a back door, having been trained as a botanist at Kew instead of at Oxbridge, and worked for the agricultural department as a plant inspector, a lowly form of life in the colonial hierarchy.

In WW1 he rose to the rank of Major and afterwards joined the Brahmins in the administration. The Brahmins never altogether took to him, for various reasons. .......... Sharpie did not subscribe to what some of Glenday's subordinates called the strength-through-misery philosophy. He belonged to the Epicurean, not the Stoic school. His tastes were sybaritic, his conversation irreverant, sometimes witty and spiced with scandal, and he had no respect whatever for sacred cows. ....... Another cause of the oblique glances that the Brahmins of the administration cast in Sharpie's direction was the fear that at any moment a major scandal would erupt around his head.

Sharpie made no bones, or few bones anyway, about his homosexual tendencies. Bones on this matter were advisable then. The law had not changed since Oscar Wilde's time, nor had social condemnation lifted. Such a scandal, it was felt, would embarrass the whole administration and tarnish the good name of the North. Men serving in the North were very jealous of its good name. The Brahmins might have been glad to get rid of Sharpie by posting him to the decadent south, but he was too good at his job to be discarded. He seldom talked about his past experiences, but I was told of one that earned him the respect of colleagues not easily impressed. ......... (Somalis and their incursion) ...…

As a junior DO in the 1920s he had been posted to Wajir, where he took over from a tall and handsome officer called John Llewellin. Long Lew, as he was generally known, wore an eyeglass, travelled in some style - clean plates for each course, polished glasses, coffee cups - and had been encountered on the march, so I was told, wearing a hat and eyeglass and a pair of sandals, with nothing in between. The Somali shared with the Masai a talent for capturing the hearts of their white rulers to such an extent that the rulers almost became the ruled. Long Lew steeped himself so deeply in Somali lore that he could even read their camel brands, a highly complex orthography by which every individual camel could be traced to its owner through his clan, sub-clan and family. The Somali were, and are, split into a number of clans, or tribes, nearly always at enmity and often at war with each other. One of the most powerful of these clans made Long Lew a blood brother and thereafter could twist him round their little fingers. He allowed them to move with all their livestock and hangers-on as far south as the Tana, where they had no right to be. Sharpie, taking a handful of 'gobbos', was sent to retrieve them. A great deal of nerve and diplomacy, and an extraordinary amount of bluff, were needed to accomplish this without bloodshed, and had blood been shed it would certainly have been Sharpie's. He marched 200 miles, rounded up about 1000 people and 10000 head of cattle, marched them back, and reinstated them in their proper ranges. 'A truly Herculean task' was how Turnbull described this achievement. 'It meant a good deal of hard trekking' was Sharpie's own comment. ........... (safari) .... he was middle aged by then, white-haired, rotund and rubicund, jovial but now and then a little testy. .........................

Sharpie had a house on Lamu island, but when he retired, he decided  to live at Ndaragwa, near Thomson's Falls, the better to exercise his gardening skills. He went into the business of designing gardens and advising on what to put in them ........ When I last saw Sharpie he had grown overweight, he puffed and panted, and his eyesight was failing. He was living alone save for a couple of servants who did not actually neglect him, but furnished no companionship either. ........... I had the impression that he was a disappointed man, believing himself to have been misprized. I do not remember his actually saying so; my impression may have been wrong. But it was true that a good many of his colleagues in Kenya's colonial service with his experience had been rewarded with nice fat governorships and 'K's'; I do not think he had even been made a PC. Perhaps he had not really deserved it. But he had created lovely gardens, and made many friends. He died at Thomson's Falls in 1966, aged 77.

Tracks - Marsabit - administrative officer - 1930s

Debrett - was in Kenya Civil Service Administration 1913-37; is a Farmer and Landscape Gardener, a Special Magistrate, Kenya, Pres. Kenya Horticultural Soc., and Kenya Arbour. Soc., and a Member of Forest Advisory Committee, Road Authority and Water Resources Authority; has been Chm. of Aberdare Dist. Council since 1943; Chm. of Asso. of District Councils of Kenya 1948-52; Designer and Planter of the Queen's Garden, Sagana Lodge, Kenya; European War 1914-18 with KAR in G. East Africa.   

KAD 1922 - Administration Cadet, Vanga

Curtis - p. 66 - Laikipia Via Gilgil (2) - mention of the Hon Kathleen Armstrong visiting Sharpe's farm in the Aberdares next door to Lady Napier's farm

Curtis - p. 90 - 'From the Album of Rose Cartwright' - Picture of R.C. with Nellie Grant and H.B. Sharpe on a safari climb to Uaraguess.

East Africa & Rhodesia - 8/1/53 - New Year Honours, CBE - for public services in Kenya. Joined the Colony's Agricultural Dept. in 1913, and after serving in the Mombasa Defence Force, the Arab Rifles, and the 5th KAR in the 1914-18 war, entered the Kenya Administration in 1918. Retiring in 1937, he started farming and landscape gardening in the Ngobit district, and has held many posts in public bodies, including those of President of the Agricultural and Arbor Societies, chairman of the Association of District Councils, and of the Aberdare District Council since 1942.

Gazette - 7/4/15 - Liable for Jury service, Mombasa

Dominion - District Officer - 1930

Nicholls - The NFD also played host to H.B. Sharpe, an administrative officer who moved from station to station creating beautiful gardens for himself with prison labour. He was kept out of the way in the north by a nervous government fearful that his homosexuality might lead to indiscretion. When 'Sharpie' was stationed at Garissa he had two lavatories known as 'Haraka' and 'Baraka', after the proverb 'Haraka, haraka, haina baraka' (haste has no blessings). Haraka was near the house, whereas Baraka was further away and open, with a lovely view of the Tana river and a table full of magazines. Sharpie had his own private game park and bird sanctuary where he would stay for days learning the songs of the birds, till he could imitate them astonishingly well.

Barnes - Thomson's Falls Cemetery - Harry Barron Sharpe, born 26 June 1889, died 27 Mar 1966 aged 76

Red Book 1919 - Agricultural Dept. - Entomological Division - Plant Import Inspector - H.B. Sharpe

Gazette - 7/5/1929 - Expunged from Coast Register of Voter - Left Area - Harry Barron Sharp - Civil Servant, Kwale

Hut - botanist ex Kew Gardens

Gazette 17 Jan 1967 probate

In 1911 England Census he is a gardener in Grimsby