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Name: ROBSON, William John

Birth Date: 20.4.1873 Willesden

Death Date: 16.7.1942 Nairobi

First Date: 1925

Last Date: 1942

Profession: Planter

Area: Ruiru, 'Meadowfield' Ruiru

Married: 2. Ida Manesty b. 1876, d. 1907 at sea 2. In Earls Court 30 Apr 1908 Nina Mary Beaumont b. 1883 Shirley, Southampton, d. 19 June 1940 Nairobi

Children: William Humphrey Fairfax (1 Feb 1906 Pretoria-1995); Patrick Beaumont (9 Mar 1909 Georgetown, Guyana-1976); Pamela Lucie (6 Dec 1911 Georgetown, Guyana-1983)

Book Reference: Ruiru, Barnes, Hut, Wolseley-Lewis

General Information:

Ruiru  Joined Lodge 4/4/1925
Nairobi Forest Road Cemetery - William John Robson, British, age 69, died 16/7/42
Wolseley-Lewis - 1930 -  " … Among this motley crowd  soon found my new boss, W.J. Robson, or perhaps he found me. He was a very thin man, smoking a pipe, dressed in a khaki jacket and trousers and a sun helmet, more or less standard wear.  …………. He was a kind man, not over-talkative, but pointed things out to me as we travelled the 18 miles to his house at Ruiru. ………. The house stood more or less on its own. A double storied, grey stone building, with corrugated iron roof. The drive up was red earth and bordered by christ-thorn. Otherwise there was little sign of a garden. Few people seemed much interested in gardening, perhaps because there were no nurseries. Certainly this family were not. A lovely red setter rushed out to greet us, followed by quite a pretty, blue-eyed blond girl, Pam.
W.J. Robson also had two sons, Paddy who had interviewed me in England and was at home and Humphrey, who worked in the coffee mills in Nairobi. Mrs Robson was skin and bone and having operation after operation for cancer. They had just built her a small room on the side of the house because she could no longer get up the stairs. Soon after I arrived she became bed-ridden and then died.  ………….  
W.J. Robson had a grand piano he played occasionally quite well. Mrs Robson was only interested in classical music and would not let me play my schoolboy records. "On the Sunny Side of the Street" etc. W.J. had been an accountant in the West Indies.. Paddy's hobby was making a car out of spare parts from other cars. He did succeed. None of them was very interested in coffee and did not know much about it anyway. At least I had a reasonably comfortable base, with reasonably good food. The house was quite well run by Pam who had to look after her mother too. Paddy and I never quite hit it off. He was a long streak of a chap, with a long thin face and long neck with a prominent Adam's apple.
Gazette 6 Dec 1938 Kiambu Voters Roll

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