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Name: NICOL, William James White
Birth Date: 16 Feb 1864 Karachi, India
Death Date: 14 Nov 1940 West Linton, Peeblesshire, Scotland
First Date: 1886
Last Date: 1902
Profession: Merchant. Worked for Smith Mackenzie & Co. and later became a senior partner
Area: Zanzibar, Mombasa
Married: 1. In Zanzibar 24 June 1895 Mary Laura Drummond Hay b. 1871 Rolleston, Notts., d. 27 Aug 1924 Kensington; 2. In Kensington 25 Apr 1925 Helen Marion Davenport b. Oct 1876 Kensington, d. 24 Nov 1943 Lanarkshire
Children: William George Drummond Hay (20 June 1899 Clifton, Glos.-1969 Ramsgate, S. Africa. He was the first Company Chairman Smith Mackenzie 1936)
Book Reference: EAWL, Jewell, North, Curtis
School: Marlborough Coll.
General Information:
Chairman of Zanzibar Chamber of Commerce
Source: Mrs P. Cockell
North - Member of Zanzibar Chamber of Commerce June 1892; Visiting Mombasa Aug. 1892; Managing Partner Smith, Mackenzie & Co. 1894. Established depot at Ndi for storage of loads for the lake steamer ss William Mackinnon Oct 1895.
Curtis - p. 132 - 'Impermanent Way' - part of a letter written in 1902 by Mrs Nichol describing a visit to Kisumu with her husband Willie, Sir Charles Eliot, the Protectorate Commissioner, Captain Coke, a retired Naval officer, and Messrs. Wilson and Marsden. - 'After a hasty breakfast Sir Charles, Willie, Mr Wilson and Mr Marsden went off on business together, so Captain Coke and I strolled down the line right to the Point, where the new steamer for the Lake is being built.
1877 the firm of Smith Mackenzie was formed in Zanzibar
1887 JW Buchanan, a partner, and WJW Nicol started a Mombasa branch of SM and lived above their office in Vasco da Gama St. Each stayed a month at a time, alternately.
1888 Birth of Imperial British East Africa Co. Buchanan became an acting administrator of IBEAC which took over the BISN agency when Smith Macenzie closed the Mombasa office. Nicol then in charge of the Zanzibar office, the senior partner EN Mackenzie having died in 1887.
1995 Home govt. took over responsibility for BEA and IBEAC surrendered its charter. Because of this, Smith Mac reopened an office in Mombasa. Nicol realised that Kikindini was the harbour of the future, bought land there for a new office and house. He designed Kilindini House - took 2 years to build as all the stone was shipped from Bombay.
1899 Nicol left EA to join Gray Dawes & Co in London.
Nicol and wife Laura were invited by the Governor to travel on ther first through train from Mombasa to Kisumu. She left an interesting account of this.
1927 His son WG joined Smith Mackenzie in Zanzibar as a junior partner.
E. African and Rhodesia He was a man of great modesty, who, if only he could have overcome his inbrained reticence, might have left on record valuable sidelights upon the early history of British Commerce commerce settlement and administration in East Africa. But no arguments could prevail against his diffidence, answer his own great part in the development of great enterprises has gone unrecorded. Depreciation here line, with the East African services of which he was so closely associated, was widely known on the coast in the early days as the nickel line.