Midday Sun - ''Glenday looks upon the NFD as something he has made and guards it jealously as his own preserve,' wrote a young cadet who kept a diary. 'He is very outspoken - he says, among ourselves in the North we speak freely, but down country we are the silent North.' He was a stimulating talker, wrote this diarist, and immensely knowledgeable - he understood ecology before the word was invented - but in 1937, when the diarist was posted to Wajir, he had had 25 years service on the frontier with many bouts of malaria, and was inclined to mumble and doze off after the evening meal. Glenday expected his officers, while at their posts, to be celibate. Married men were seldom posted to the NFD, and had to leave their wives behind if they were. One young bride who did manage to wriggle through the anti-feminist net as far as Marsabit wrote that she was more frightened of Glenday than of the buiffaloes that browsed around the boma; when she actually encountered him, however, he was mild as milk. Her husband, Gerald Reece, was to succeed him as boss of the NFD. The district officers were young, fit and virile, and Somali women, in youth so handsome and seductive, offered a temptation one might have thought impossible to resist. But Glenday opposed Somali mistresses as firmly as he forbade wives. For one thing syphilis, he believed, would be the almost certain price of a liaison, and, for another, the young man would find himself drawn into complicated feuds and intrigues that would compromise his impartiality, as had happened in the case of Long Lew. 'In former days,' ran a rather wistful entry in our young cadet's diary, 'most KAR officers had native mistresses. Some were so long-standing that they were almost called on! They knew every secret too.' ................ 'What of Glenday's own amours, if any? His reputation as a strong silent man of the North, combined with his bachelor status, naturally fluttered various dovecots when he visited Nairobi. With Loresho as his base on these occasions, it was inevitable that his name should have been linked with Glady Delamere's. These rumours were scotched by one of the country's most incorrigible gossips. 'Just good friends,' he said. 'Glady assures me that V.G. is a bull virgin.' Glenday himself put an end to speculation in 1938 by marrying a young widow, daughter of a former Chief Justice. Then he left his kingdom to govern British Somaliland, and in due course begat 3 sons, served as British Resident in Zanzibar, and retired first to a small farm in Kenya and finally to Natal, where he died in his 80th year in 1970.

Police - Trouble in the Northern Province did not cease entirely. Vincent Glenday, a young DC with only a few years service, had to deal with some Degodia raiders in Feb. 1917, with a force of 30 KAR, 40 Police, some Gurre warriors and one machine gun. They engaged, defeated and scattered a large band of Degodia. Glenday's force lost 40 men killed, and the Degodia left some 200 dead on the ground. In 1934 Glenday became officer-in-charge of the Northern Frontier. From 1939 to 1942 he was Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Somaliland and from 1946 to 1951 British Resident, Zanzibar.  

Lillibullero - G........ At this time he was, I believe, in his early forties; that age of splendid content, before the heart-break hour of middle-age has struck. When a man still holds himself supreme among his younger contemporaries. He held undisputed sway over his great territory and seemed to carry his sceptre with a somewhat musing air. His character was an agreeable blend of vigour and tranquillity ....... taciturn ......... Gurre country, and Glenday's own. Years ago now, in the first Great War, he spent 3 years alone with this tribe, subsisting on their meagre and unpalatable foods, living among them and moving with them from camping-ground to camping-ground in the desert ....... In the many years I have known Vincent Glenday, no question, adroit as I could make it, ever persuaded him into details of his nomad life. I know he subsisted without European food; I know that he lived a trifle aloof, but attended the daily meeting of the tribesmen to pick up news; and I know that he went on his white Arab stallion from clan to clan. What else he did, and how he passed the long days, I know not. He once declared that these people afforded him no more sense of companionship than their camels ....….     

Reece - Gerald made his will and left everything to Alys. This included 50 camels. ...... On the boast out she was warned by a Mrs S. that if she were going to the Northern Frontier she should have to look out for her husband's master, Vincent Glenday; according to Mrs S. he so disliked women that he did his best to keep them out of his province. ....... 'I believed this. For a long time I was more frightened of Glenday than I was of the lone buffalo which haunted the back of the house ...... Glenday was sometimes referred to - affectionately, as I learnt later - as the 'Cock of the North'. Beyond Isiolo what he said went .......... He could not have been kinder to me and became a good friend. It was true, however, that he preferred to have unmarried men in the NFD. He regarded young wives as a liability in a part of the world where an officer had more often than not to be out of the station. ...... Glenday did not approve of women on safari, and there were many areas where he expressly forbade them to accompany their husbands ......... retired in 1939 .... New Year 1939 - Glenday bringing party of 3 women - getting married. Glenday had given years of his life to the people of the Northern Frontier, and had spent himself in the effort to see that peace prevailed and that justice was done. He was appointed Governor of British Somaliland. He would never bring his bride to the Northern Frontier.

Debrett - formerly Prov. Commr. Kenya; appointed Gov. and Com.-in-Ch. of Somaliland Protectorate 1939, Resident Adviser Hadramaut States 1944, and British Resident, Zanzibar Protectorate 1946; retired 1951

Colonial - Asst. Dist. Comsnr. EAP 1913; Offr. in Ch. Somali disarmament, N. Frontier Dist 1919 (AGS Med.); Secon. as Dist. Comsnr. Br. Som. 1920; Asst. Dist. Comsnr. 1922; Dist. Comsnr. 1926; Abyssinian Miss. 1927-28; Senior Dist. Comsnr. 1934; Prov. Comsnr. 1935; Gov. and C-in-C Somalia 1939; C.O. 1942-43; Br. Agt. E. Aden. Prot., and Res. Advr. Hadhramaut States 1944-45; Br. Res. Zanzibar 1946-52; Speaker EA Cent. Leg. Assembly 1953

CO 533/371/3 - Confidential Reports 1927 - Can be strongly recommended for frontier work and the OAG hopes he will be given special promotion in this branch.

Dominion - District Officer - 1930

Chandler - Glenday was assigned as Assistant District Commissioner at Fort Moyale in Kenya's NFD in 1913. A powerful stocky man, Glenday was eminently cut out for the job, which largely entailed curbing the activities of Abyssinian raiders and slavers. The raiders' pattern was to attack a Somali or Boran village at dawn, massacre everyone except the young girls, who would be sold as slaves, and escape back across the border with their captives and the defeated village's camels. Chasing them was hot and bloody work. In addition to his frequent antiraiding measures, Glenday carried out all the usual chores of a DC, such as holding trials for minor offences and mediating disputes between tribes. During WW1 Britain withdrew most of her troops from the NFD. Glenday volunteered to stay behind and help the now-abandoned tribesmen to fend off the increasing raids. He carried out this duty with great credit to himself and helped alleviate the feeling among the Somalis and Borans that the English had left them in the lurch. The 4 years following 1914 were ones of constant skirmishing for Glenday and a picked group of soldiers he had kept with him. After the war Glenday continued his duties, becoming a virtual legend in the NFD. He was considered the epitome of what a colonial officer should be and rose to become the province's officer-in-charge from 1934 to 1938. He received a knighthood and eventually rose to other posts such as British resident in Zanzibar 1946-51 and a position in Saudi Arabia. He lived to an old age, retiring to the so-called 'White Highlands' near Nairobi.

Gazette 28/1/1914 - Arrived on 1st Appointment - Asst. Dist. Commissioner - 14/1/1914

Nairobi Club - Honorary Life Member

Moyse - 1925 - DC Turkana. Lillibullero - 1933, PC at Isiolo - Known as 'Faras Adi' or 'The White Horse'.

KAD 1922 - Asst. District and Resident Commissioner, Kitale, Trans Nzoia

Gazette 30 Apr 1971 probate