Back to search results
Name: ULYATE, Raymond Robert
Nee: son of Robert Valentine Ulyate
Birth Date: 22 Oct 1884 East London, S. Africa
Death Date: 31 Mar 1949 Moshi
First Date: 1906
Last Date: 1949
Profession: Started farming in EA but his great interest in big-game led him to take up safari work and he conducted many hunting trips throughout the country. His major hobby was taking photographs and film of animals in natural surroundings
Area: Elmenteita, 1907 Limuru, Magadi Junction, 1914 Kijabe
Married: In Nairobi 9.1.1908 Marjorie Ann (Rooken) Smith b. 11.3.1883 Cathcart, SA, d. 21.12.1969 Durban (dau of William Alexander (Rooken) Smith)
Children: Ashton Jack (Nairobi 28.11.1908-15.11.1995); Rosemarie Vivien (Borissow) (10.1.1910 Nairobi-5.9.1994 S. Australia); Thora Jane (Barratt, then Milwall) (7.11.1911 Nairobi-1995); Kenyon Robert William (8.5.1913 Nairobi- 29.6.1981 S. Africa); Malham Lorne (10.4.1916 Elmenteita-2001); Winton Guildford (8.7.1917 Kijabe-9.11.2011 UK)
Book Reference: North, Roosevelt, Gillett, Breath, KAD, Red 25, RS, Hut, Red 22, Into Africa, Gazette, Leader14, Chandler, mini-SITREP XXXIII, Red Book 1912
General Information:
He owned a coffee plantation in Tanganyika and also the New Arusha Hotel and the Lion Club Hotel at Moshi
Red 22 - Honorary Permit Issuer - R. Ulyate, Elmenteita
Into Africa - The [Buffalo] Jones safari was organized in Nairobi under the direction of a white hunter named Ray Ulyate. Gazette - 7/4/15 - Liable for Jury service, Dagoretti - R. Ulyate
Chandler - Ulyate was born in South Africa and moved to the Kijabe district of Kenya in the early 1900s. He was taking clients out on safari as earky as 1907 when he guided the American banker Kenyon Painter. In 1910 he worked with the Buffalo Jones expedition. Ulyate was associated with the safari firm of Newland and Tarlton.
Ulyate moved to Arusha in 1923 and purchased a coffee farm called Meru Estate, a property that had been confiscated from its German owners in WW1. He grew coffee for 5 years, until the market crashed in 1928. Meru Estate was later bought by Kenyon Painter and is now the site of the Tanzania Parks Dept. headquarters. Ulyate also leased and managed the New Arusha Hotel, which was apparently built and owned by Painter. Ulyate was constantly referred to in contemporary newspaper articles as the "proprietor". The first guest at the New Arusha was the Prince of Wales, who was honoured at a reception held there in December 1927. Ulyate and his family ran the New Arusha until 1947.
Ulyate ran the African Tours and Hotels company and pioneered the concept of photo safaris, taking clients out to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro to film lion. He dragged bait carcasses behind a truck until the cats got used to the free meal and would come running whenever Ulyate and his guests showed up with their cameras. The practice was eventually banned by the game department. Ulyate had 6 children - 4 boys (including one named Kenyon) and 2 girls.
mini-SITREP XXXIII - Legion of Frontiersmen - 1912 - Transport Officer - 1st Lt. R. Ulyate
Red Book 1912 - R. Ulyate - Naivasha
Gazette - 3/12/1919 - Register of Voters - Rift Valley Area - R.R. Ulyate - Farmer - Elmenteita and Margery Ann Ulyate - Married - Elmenteita
Roosevelt - We hired 4 ox wagons. They were under the lead of a fine young Colonial Englishman named Ulyate, whose great grandfather had come to SA in 1820, as part of the most important English emigration that ever went thither. His father and sisters had lunched with us at the missionaries' [AIM Kijabe] the day before; his wife's baby was too young for her to come. It was the best kind of pioneer family; all the members, with some of their fellow colonials, had spent much of the preceding 3 years in adventurous exploration of the country in their ox-waggons, the wives and daughters as valiant as the men ...... the family had now settled on a big farm, but also carried on the business of 'transport riding', as freighting with waggons is called in Africa. Ulyate's brother-in-law, Smith, had been rendered a hopeless cripple for life, 6 months previously, by a lion he had wounded.
Back to search results
