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Name: DUTTON, Eric Aldhelm Torlogh CMG, CBE (Major)

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Birth Date: 24.5.1895 Lothersdale, Yorks.

Death Date: 27.11.1973 Lisbon

First Date: 1918

Profession: Private secretary to Sir Edward Grigg - 1929. Early explorer on Mt. Kenya, pre 1920

Area: Nairobi, Zanzibar

Married: In Westminster 1936 Myrtle Eleanore Gough b. 4 Apr 1904 Ballysax, Kildare, Ireland, d. 1 Apr 2002 Wandsworth

Children: Charles (1945)

Author: 'The Basuto of Basutoland' 1923, 'Kenya Mountain' 1929, 'The Planting of Trees and Shrubs' 1937, 'Lillibullero - or The Golden Road' 1944

Book Reference: Random, Midday Sun, Mountain Club of Kenya Bulletin No. 11, Lillibullero, Perham, Debrett, Red 25, Red 31, Hut, Red 22, Nicholls

War Service: WW1 in Gallipoli as Major W. Yorks Regt. (severely wounded, despatches, 1914-15 star, 2 medals)

School: Hurstpierpoint Coll. and Keble College, Oxford

General Information:

Midday Sun - Daphne Moore, wife of the new Chief Secretary in 1929 wrote that Sir Edward Grigg was universally distrusted and ran the country in cahoots with two scoundrelly accomplices, Hugh Martin, the Commissioner for Lands, heavily in debt, of dubious honesty and seldom sober, and Grigg's private secretary, Eric Dutton, a devious plotter. .......... If Daphne Moore was unkind to Eric Dutton, he had only himself to blame. He deliberately cultivated a pose of boorishness and enjoyed his reputation for ill manners, while at the same time ingratiating himself with the nobs of this small colonial world. He was the sort of man one could imagine tapping a Minister on the shoulder and, with a knowing smile, whispering into his ear a piece of scandalous gossip. But the image he projected of himself was only half true. He was a brave man, for one thing; so badly had both legs been smashed in the war that he was obliged to wear heavy iron calipers and to use a stick; nevertheless he climbed Mt. Kenya and got to within 500 yards of the top. At that time, in 1926, only Sir Halford Mackinder and his Swiss guide had reached the summit, in 1899, so even for a fit man this would have been a considerable achievement. Beneath his off-putting manner and homely appearance lay a vein of creativeness which found expression, when opportunity could be manoeuvred into offering, in designing buildings, gardens and parks. When Sir Edward Grigg, Governor from 1925 to 1930, invited Britain's great imperial architect, Sir Herbert Baker, to design a new Government House in Nairobi, a smaller version in Mombasa and other public buildings elsewhere, Eric Dutton sat at Baker's feet and acquired a good working knowledge of the trade, as well as the friendship of the brilliant but erratic Hollander, Jan Hoogterp, whom Baker put in charge of his EA building programme. After Dutton moved on to N. Rhodesia, he summoned Hoogterp to create in that country's barren bush a complete new capital to replace the inadequate little township of Livingstone ........….. Lusaka.
Lillibullero - Author visited the North in 1924,28,29,30,33,35 & 38.
Perham - 1929 - Nairobi, Govt. House, H.E. having written me a very nice letter of invitation and his secretary, Major Eric Dutton, a rather nasty one, and quite incomprehensible. .......... (later - looking at papers of Dr. J.H. Oldham about this period I note that Major Dutton remarks that 'Margery Perham ought to be boiled in oil'). ....... He has made himself indispensable, I gather, to more than one Governor, and is a strange, brilliant, critical person. In spite of having been lamed in the war, he is a famous climber, and has written a beautiful book about Kenya mountains. But he damns people sweepingly, even when he knows they are friends of mine.
Debrett - entered Colonial Administrative Service 1918; was Private Sec. to Gov. of Uganda and Kenya 1920-30, Principal Assist. Ch. Sec. N. Rhodesia 1930-37, Administrative Sec. 1938, and Colonial Sec. Bermuda 1938-42, since when Ch. Sec. Zanzibar
Nicholls - the possessor of artificial legs who none the less climbed Mount Kenya.
Helped Eleanor Cole with building the Church of Goodwill in getting drawings of the Mbweni mission Church in Zanzibar. 
Chief Secretary, Zanzibar 1948

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