View entry
Name: BLADEN-TAYLOR, Ronald Rumbold
Nee: bro of Eric Ernest and Harry Herbert Bladen-Taylor
Birth Date: 16 Jan 1870 Mussoorie, Bengal
Death Date: 5 Jan 1951 Nairobi
Nationality: British
First Date: 1898
Profession: Farmer
Area: 'Castle Farm', Kikuyu, Hut - Mile 359 Escarpment Merchant Contractor. HBEA 1912 - Kikuyu, 1930 Box 826, Nairobi, 1919 Grogan Estates Turi
Married: In Brixton 26 Oct 1912 Margery Clara Lilian Davis b. 1892 Battersea
Book Reference: Gillett, EAHB 1905, Red 25, Hut, North, Red 22, Advertiser, Pioneers, Childhood, Gazette, SE, HBEA, Golf, KAD, Red 25, Playne, Drumkey, Land, Harmony, EAHB 1904, Gazette, Red 31, Red 22, Red 19
General Information:
Farmed at Kikuyu where he lived for more than 40 years.
Advertiser - 10/7/1908 - The partnership between Donald Sutherland Garvie, R.R. Bladen Taylor and George William Cearn as the Advertiser Company is dissolved. D.S. Garvie is now sole proprietor - 26/6/08
Pioneers - Possibly the first European settler at Kikuyu was Robert [sic] Bladen-Taylor, a journalist and contemporary of Rudyard Kipling, who came from India about 1898 and became a fuel contractor for the railway. He established a homestead at Lengenny Farm and, with his wife, served teas at Kikuyu Station.
North, who calls him Robert, - Uganda Railway - arr. from India as fuel contractor for Uganda Railway c. 1898; Temporary Railway appt. 4/4/1899; Clerk, Transport Dept. 30/9/1900; given 3 months' notice as Dept. disbanded when line reached Lake Victoria 20/11/1901; Land Grant application 29/5/1903, Kikuyu; owner of a 200 acre shamba at Kikuyu, March 1904
Childhood - Menina Slade, née Gordon 1925 - "The only thing that I clearly remember of our journey by train to Koru was stopping at Kijabi, where there was a howling wind and an old European man, selling punnets of the most delicious figs. He was a well-known character, by name of Bladen Taylor and he eked out a livelihood by selling his fruit to all the passenger trains passing through Kijabi.
Gazette - 29/10/1919 - Register of Voters - Kikuyu - Ronald Rumbold Bladen Taylor, Settler, Castle Farm, PO Kikuyu and Margery Bladen Taylor, Married, Castle Farm, PO Kikuyu
Gazette - 15/11/1927 - Application for General Retail & Hotel Liquor Licence - R R Bladen-Taylor - Premises
known as 'Rendezvous' on Plot No 14, Thompson's Estate near Nairobi
Gazette 7/11/1917 - Application for General Retail Liquor Licence - Ronald Bladen Taylor - store close to the Kikuyu Railway station.
Red Book 1919 - R. Bladen-Taylor - Castle Farm, Kikuyu
KAD 1922 - Hon Sec. and Treasurer of Dagoretti Settlers' Association
Runner-up in the Goldfields Golf Championship in 1937 (R.B. Taylor ?).
SE - R.B. Taylor - July 1907 and R. Blayden Taylor - Aug 1910
Playne - The 'Times of East Africa' - ' ...... in February 1907, Mr D.S. Garvie was appointed manager and continued to act in that capacity until June of the same year, when the company sold the plant to Messrs D.S. Garvie, G.W. Cearn, and R.B. Taylor. The name of the paper was then changed to the 'Advertiser of East Africa', with Mr Garvie as manager and editor. Many alterations were made in the business policy of the new company. ......…
In June of 1908 the 'Advertiser' Company was dissolved, and Mr D.S. Garvie, buying out his partners, continued to run the business on the same lines, with Mr MacLellan Wilson, who had been engaged in the preceding month of May, as editor.
Drumkey 1909 - Directory of Residents - R. Bladen Taylor, Timber and Grain Merchant and Contractor, Mile 357, Escarpment
Land - 1908 - R.B. Taylor - Grazing, 2679 acres, Machakos, 20-7-07, Registered 13-8-08
Member of Lodge Harmony - Initiated 13/9/07, age 37, Contractor, Escarpment - Ronald Bladen Taylor
EAHB 1904 - Masai-Land District Residents - Taylor, R.B. - Kikuyu
Gazette - 15/2/1906 - Castle Farm, Kikuyu - Pleuro pneumonia in his cattle
Drumkey 1909 - Contractor - R.B. Tylor [sic] Mile 359, near Escarpment Station
Gazette 6 Dec 1938 Kiambu Voters List
Gazette 26 June 1951 probate