View entry
Name: BROWN, John Monteith 'Monty'
Photo Source: Mini-Sitrep XXXX
Nee: son of Dr William Monteith Brown and Jessie Catherine Brown, missionaries
Birth Date: 17 July 1929 Scotland
Death Date: 15 February 2012 Nairobi
First Date: 1930
Profession: Practised as a geologist and fisheries officer 1950-59. Own safari and fishing business - 1975. Author and historian
Area: Nanyuki
Married: In Nanyuki Apr 1955 Barbara Patricia Joffe b. 16 Jan 1933
Children: Patricia Catherine (1956); Kenneth (1958) married Ann Powys
Author: 'Where Giants Trod', 1992; Hunter Away (re A. H. Neumann)
Book Reference: EAWL, Hut
War Service: Kenya Regt. 1950-55; Mau Mau service
School: Prince of Wales School, Nairobi; St. Andrew's University
General Information:
He joined the civil engineering firm Stirling & Scott in Nairobi spending his time on safaris in Tanganyika and Kenya siting bore holes. In 1951 he joined Game Dept as superintendent of the Fish Culture Farm at Sagana and hon. game warden of the area and did research into the breeding and sexing of tilapia. During the Mau Mau rebellion he was in operations in the Aberdare and Mt Kenya and in 1953 he was transferred to Nanyuki to become an instructor at the newly formed tracking school. He built a number of small patrol boats for the Fishery Dept. Very interested in sportfishing he bought a plot at Malindi and managed a fishing business. He also conducted hunting safaris which he took to the northern frontier in Kenya and into Tanganyika. He spent two years in Australia and South Africa but returned to Kenya. He then worked at Solio and moved to a house near Naro Moru which had belonged to the Sherbrooke-Walkers. He and his son took out photographic safaris. He wrote several books, doing the historical research for them. He then bought land 20 miles west of Nanyuki and spent the last 20 years of his life there. He also undertook to restore the eldest cemetery in Nairobi (the Nairobi South cemetery) which had fallen into a state of disorder; he raised funds and cleared the cemetery.