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Name: CARTWRIGHT, Rose, Mrs

image of individual

Nee: Buxton, dau. of Geoffrey Fowell Buxton, sister of Joan, Lady Ramsden and Geoffrey Charles Buxton

Birth Date: 25 Feb 1898 Henstead, Norfolk

Death Date: 13 May 1987 Nairobi

First Date: 1906

Area: Naivasha

Married: In Smallbrugh, Norfolk 12 June 1923 Algernon Richard Aubrey Cartwright (1888-1947) (div.)

Children: Giles Aubrey (22 Apr 1924 Nairobi-19 June 1988); Prudence Tobina (19 Apr 1928 Nairobi-2016, m. 1939 Capt Arthur Gerald Cole)

Book Reference: Midday Sun, Debrett, Markham, Rhodora, Curtis, Mrs Arthur Cole, Stud, Burke

General Information:

She became a professional huntress. Was a superb embroiderer.
Midday Sun - safari with H.B. Sharpe, Nellie Grant and E. Huxley to NFD in 1937 - 'Rose, like Sharpie could seldom be faulted on the naming of a plant or bird. Beneath a quiet, rather self-effacing manner lay a dry wit, a keen appraising eye, a devotion to wild places and a talent as a raconteur. On a visit to a brother immediately after WW1 she had fallen in love with the country as well as with Algy Cartwright, whom she married; the first love affair lasted, the second did not. Now she had a herd of beautiful Guernsey cows which she dearly loved, as did her dachshunds, the fire-finches and cordon bleus that hopped about her living room, and sorties into the Aberdare forest with a rifle, a groundsheet, a cooking pot and little else, in search of the elusive bongo, an exercise which seemed to me to plumb the depths of discomfort. ........... she was dogged by ill fortune. Birth under an unlucky star seemed the only way to account for the undeserved misfortunes that fell upon her. Dreadful things happened to her prize cows, things that happened to no other people's cattle - unlikely accidents, rare diseases, deformed calves, deliberate sabotage. Once she ran over a favourite dachshund while backing her car. The man she hoped to marry died, after several years of suffering, from wounds inflicted in the war. She trusted her staff, but they frequently betrayed her; others had the same experience, but she seemed to have it more often than most. On the surface she was gentle, mild and lenitive; underneath, tough. So much was made plain by the story of her daughter's birth. The baby was premature. Rose was alone in a rudimentary shack with no telephone or nearby European neighbours; this was in the days when African employees lived apart in their huts, and none of the women had as yet ventured into European houses or become acclimatised to European ways. She despatched a runner to Naivasha, about 20 miles away, but the term runner was an expression of hope, not of reality; and no one came. The baby arrived, a tiny four-pounder. Rose was uncertain what to do next, and afraid of harming the infant, so it remained attached to the umbilical cord. 'Luckily it suckled madly,' she said. She herself opened a half-bottle of champagne. 'What else could I do?' she remarked. Nearly 18 hours elapsed before help arrived and the cord was severed. When at last a doctor came, he had to operate, but had brought no anaesthetics. Rose, and the baby, survived. She was a survivor, despite the blows of fate. She also survived an attack by thieves that left her tied up on the floor, battered and unconscious with broken bones, and permanently semi-crippled. All this she bore with  humour and without despair, continuing her embroideries of flowers and birds in the finest of stitches on the purest of silk woven in China. They are works of art, and a shoal of brilliant tropical fishes, hanging on a wall of my cottage beneath a flight of ducks, never ceases to delight.'
Rhodora - Mrs Cartwright - a member of the Council of the Guernsey Society. She is in her 50's, husband dead or gone and is one of the Duchess of Gloucester's best friends.
Curtis - p. 90 - 'From the Album of Rose Cartwright' - 'Denys Finch-Hatton, the white hunter friend of Karen Blixen, imported Rhodesian Ridgebacks to use as hunting dogs. This was not a success - he claimed the fly was too much for them - so he gave his dogs to Mrs Cartwright, who bred from them. The early Ridgeback imports were russet or brindled, the wheaten strains were later arrivals.
EA Stud Book 1954 - Cattle - Guernseys - Mrs R. Cartwright, Gilgil
Markham - Took over as white hunter

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