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Name: ANDERSON, Alfred Gerald Wright

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Nee: son of Warminster vicar, bro of Charles Arthur Mason Anderson

Birth Date: 27 Sep 1872 Avon Dasset, Warwickshire

Death Date: 28 Mar 1936 Perth, Australia

Nationality: British

First Date: 1900

Profession: Resided at Mombasa and was President of Mombasa Chamber of Commerce in 1905 & 1906. Proprietor of East African Standard

Area: Mombasa

Married: 1. In Berwick Bassett, Wilts. 22.9.1891 (div. 1914) Emma 'Maia' Louise Antoinette Trossaert de Tranqueville b. 26 Jan 1874 (?1868) Ghent, d. 7 Apr 1936 Nairobi (later married Rudolf Franz Mayer in 1916 after Anderson had gone to Australia); 2. In Dunedin, N. Zealand 6 July 1915 Muriel Alice Newman Waddell b. 28 Apr 1882 Dunedin, d. 19 May 1954 Kelmscott, W. Australia

Children: Jack Marcel Wright (1892 Cape Town-1893; Gerald Victor Wright (19 Oct 1893 Namakwa, S. Africa-11 Aug 1986); Claude Birkbeck Wright (7 Sep 1895 Kimberley, S. Africa-1974 Nairobi); Charles Groves Wright (12 Feb 1897 Cape Town-11 Nov 1988 Australia); Rudolph Ebenezer Mason (25 Oct 1901 Mombasa-1965); Maia Alfreda Ivy (Carberry) (20 Jan 1904 Mombasa-12 Mar 1928 Nairobi) [last two not sired by Anderson but Mayer?]; Joan Rutherford Anderson (2 Sep 1916 Orange, NSW, Australia-1986)

Author: 'Our Newest Colony' 1910

Book Reference: Gillett, HBEA, KFA, Sorrenson, Cranworth, Kenya Diary, Land 1903, EAHB 1905, North, Drumkey, Land, EAHB 1906, Harmony, EAHB 1904, EAHB 1907, Red Book 1912

General Information:

KFA - Mr W.H. Tiller started the 'East African Standard' in 1902 and sold it in 1905 to Messrs. Anderson and Rudolf Mayer, who moved it to Nairobi from Mombasa, where it had begun. (The first Nairobi issue was on Feb. 1st 1910)
Sorrenson - 'East African Standard' - The paper was started by Jevanjee in 1901 as the 'African Standard'. Jeevanjee sold it to Anderson and Meyer in August 1905, when it was renamed.
Cranworth - venture into the newspaper world - 'Leading paper the "East African Standard". The Editor and big noise was a Mr Anderson, with whom was associated a Mr Meyer who subsequently succeeded him. Mr Anderson was of a somewhat mercurial disposition but undoubtedly combined ability and independence with a very genuine love of the country of his adoption. Mr Anderson and I worked hard at formation of a Settler's Parliament, or Convention as it was, and indeed still is called. ............ articles criticising Lord Delamere ....... settlers dumped Anderson in the river after a party at Cranworth's. Anderson blamed Cranworth who did not take part. ....….'
Kenya Diary - 1902 - 'I met a lady this afternoon .... accompanied by a native nurse and 2 small boys. She told me she was a Mrs Anderson ......... I liked her and she told me a lot about the country. She came up here from S. Africa in 1900. (This was Maia Anderson who later married Meyer during WW1, when I got to know her well. The child in the perambulator must have been Claude Anderson of the EA Standard) .......... May 1903 - Nairobi - met Mrs Anderson, whom I had previously seen in Mombasa last year; she is up for a visit. She tells me she has bought from the Parsee Jeevanjee a local newspaper called the 'East African Standard' which was founded in 1901 under the name 'African Standard'. Good luck to her! I liked her more than ever; she is a Belgian with a strong foreign accent, and we lunched together at the Victoria Hotel, a miserable dirty place - tinned salmon, rancid butter, high meat and maggoty cheese, the whole garbage costing me 8 rupees.   
Land Grant 1903 - A.G.W. Anderson - Mombasa-Kilindini tramline concession for 21 years - Island of Mombasa - Jan 1 - Rent 800l. per annum for 5 years, 1,000l. for 10 years, 1,500l for 6 years. Further Grant - A.G.W. Anderson - Magarini cocoanut shambas, lease for 50 years - Malindi district - Feb 6 - Lease - Granted through Foreign Office. Further Grant - Pearl Fisheries Concession, for 10 years - Certain parts of coast of British East Africa - May 5 - Lease - Granted locally
North - granted lease of Mombasa Trolley Line for 21 years 1/1/1903. Bought EA Standard Newspaper May 1903 with Mayer  '…… Anderson of the Grand Hotel & a rogue of the first water' (F.J. Jackson, FO2)
Drumkey 1909 - Committee Member, The Chamber of Commerce, Mombasa (Anderson & Mayer)
North - known as 'G.W. Anderson'; arr. Zanzibar from SA with Belgian wife Maia nee Trossard and son Claud, Dec 1900; arr Mombasa Jan 1901; '… Anderson of the Grand Hotel & a rogue of the first water' (F.J. Jackson, FO2)
Robin Anderson - Alfred went off to Australia and Mayer went with Mrs Anderson and carried on the newspaper
Land - 1910 - Alfred Gerald Wright Anderson - Buildings, 1.5 acres - Mombasa - 29/3/09 - Leasehold for 7 years from 8/8/10 - Registered 20/9/10
North - Mrs Anderson dep. Mombasa for Europe with two youngest children, Rudolph and Maia, 9-2-1905 'He does not inspire me with confidence' (Sir Charles Eliot, FO2)
EAHB 1904 - Mombasa & Kilindini Residents - Anderson, A.G.W. Proprietor, Grand Hotel, Macdonald Terrace
Red Book 1912 - A.G. Anderson - Nairobi
Red Book 1912 - Committee Member of the EA Nursing Association - Mrs A.G. Anderson
Red Book 1912 - Committee Member - Nairobi Colonists' Association Gazette 1/6/1913 - Dissolution of Partnership - Notice is hereby given that the partnership lately subsisting between us, the undersigned Alfred Gerald Wright Anderson, Maia Anderson and Rudolf Franz Mayer, carrying on business at Nairobi, Mombasa and elsewhere in the East Africa Protectorate under the style or firm of "Anderson and Mayer" has been dissolved by mutual consent as from the first day of April 1913, so far as regards the said Alfred Gerald Anderson who retires from the firm. All debts due to or owing by the said late firm will be received and paid by the said Maia Anderson and Rudolf Franz Mayer who will continue the said business under the present style or firm of "Anderson and Mayer".
HBEA 1912 shows A.G. Anderson as at 'Standard' Newspaper, Nairobi.
North - ran Grand Hotel Mombasa with Rudolf Mayer;
Gazette - 1/6/1913 - Dissolution  of Partnership between Alfred Gerald Wright Anderson, Maia Anderson and Rudolph Franz Mayer carrying on business under the style of Anderson and Mayer. Retirement of Alfred Gerald Anderson. Business to be carried on by Maia Anderson and Rudolf Franz Mayer.
Reynolds’s Newspaper 28 June 1914 Mrs Emma Louise Antoinette Anderson told the divorce court how her husband Alfred Gerald Wright Anderson, formerly editor of the East African Standard, Mombasa, had deserted her and sunk so low as to have misconducted himself with the native woman. Council stated that the marriage took place in 1891 and for some years husband and wife lived at Nairobi, East Africa, where the respondent was in business as a partner in a publishing firm which produced the East African Standard. In 1910, while the wife was in England, the respondent misconducted himself with a native servant in his employ, and on the wife’s return she obtained possession of a letter which she saw this native girl hand to her husband. In it the girl wrote that she had been the respondent’s wife while Mrs Anderson was away, and expressed her anger that he was not giving her presents now that Mrs Anderson had returned. Mrs Anderson having given evidence, and the depositions of the native servant as to adultery having been read, a decree nisi was granted, the case being undefended.

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