View entry
Name: WEHNER, Max Herman
Birth Date: 24.11.1872 Rusholme, Lancs.
Death Date: June 1928 Manchester
Nationality: British
First Date: 1904
Profession: Engineer
Area: Nakuru
Book Reference: North
General Information:
North - From Liverpool; arr EA from SA with William Gibson Sept 1904; arr. Nakuru from Nairobi 16/10/1904; working plot near Nakuru with G.C. Knapp & William Gibson Oct-Nov 1904; arrested with Gibson at Nakuru for murder 26/11/1904; sentenced to death for shooting dead a Kikuyu boy when drunk 1/2/1905; appeal against murder conviction on grounds that trial was faulty rejected by EAP Court of Appeal 7/3/1905; Death sentence commuted to life imprisonment by Sir Donald Stewart 18/3/1905; moved from Nairobi prison to Mombasa 1/4/1905; 'Guilty of a brutal and cold-blooded murder …. will probably be released on a technicality' (Stewart, CO 533) June 1905; Conviction quashed by Privy Council in London on the grounds that jury did not actually give a 'guilty of murder' verdict 8/2/1906; released from Mombasa prison 9/2/1906
Changed his name to John Patrick Vaynagh - death recorded under that name.
His father, Johann Gustavus Wehner, was naturalised British 23 Dec 1872 when Max was 3 weeks old.