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Name: BLACK, Geoffrey Gilbert Newton

Birth Date: 9 Apr 1884 Claremont, Cape Town

Death Date: ?19 June 1965 Brakpan, Transvaal

First Date: 1924

Profession: Accountant. Managed coffee farm near Thika

Area: Thika, Nairobi, Limuru

Married: 1. In Claremont, Cape Province 10 Feb 1909 Mary Gwendoline Slade b. 20 Oct 1888 Tarkastad, Eastern Cape, d. 1911; 2. In Cape Town 24 June 1913 Violet Mildred Slade (prev. m. to Mr Loding)

Children: 1. Gwendoline Joyce (5 Nov 1909 Wynberg, Cape Province) 2. Neva Mildred (1 July 1917 Wynberg); Violet Edna (23 Oct 1913 Wynberg) ; Norma; Eugene Gilbert (31 May 1914 Johannesburg-1900 Vancouver)

General Information:

Iain Mulligan: Geoffrey Gilbert Newton Black was born in Claremont, Capetown, 9 April 1884. He married Violet Mildred Slade  (her second marriage after Loding, with two children in SA).  He came to Kenya about 1924.  He managed  a coffee farm near Thika.  Wife Violet and daughter Neva joined him from Durban.  The farm was sold under him, they moved to Nairobi.  Son Eugene and daughter Edna joined them from SA C1927, as did another daughter Norma.  1930 the family moved to a dairy farm "situated in the heart of Limuru, one of the loveliest parts of KC" (which would have been the entry in Tim Hutchinson's directory for 1930. I wonder what Tim's source was?)  But it wasn't a success as the cows were eating the wrong weeds so Geoffrey moved to Ruiru to manage another coffee estate, followed later from Limuru by Violet  and family.  This position ended with a court case  and the family back in Parklands. He lit out for the Kakamaga goldfields, no success, took to managing a mixed farm at Elburgon without the knowledge of his family.  Then back in Nairobi as an accountant.  Violet left Geoffrey and returned to Durban in 1939, Eugene and Edna had married and were living their own lives.  Violet was reunited with her first family (Eugene's half brother and half sister) in the Transvaal, and died in Durban 1972.  Norma and Neva returned to live out their lives in Durban. Geoffrey embezzled from his employer and went to jail in Nairobi,  not mentioned again. Geoffrey's daughter Edna Violet Black (b 1916) came to Kenya with her parents, and married John Fulton, bookkeeper,  in Nairobi on 4 June 1938* - it was a double wedding with the same clergyman at St Andrews Church of Scotland (not sure why Church of Scotland, but my mother who was there would have approved). John and Edna were still in Nairobi in 1971, I don't know of any children.

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