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Name: BERKLEY-MATTHEWS, John Matthews

Nee: son of Frederick Berkley-Matthews

Birth Date: 20 Aug 1901 Newcastle upon Tyne

Death Date: 18 Aug 1954 shot by Mau Mau at Sigona

First Date: 1928

Last Date: 1954

Profession: Managing Director of Kikuyu Estates Ltd., designed and constructed Sigona Golf Course on Kikuyu Estates Land in 1938

Area: Sigona

Married: 1939 Elizabeth Joan Harcourt Wheeler b. 24 Aug 1914, d. 27 July 2001 Tisbury, Wilts.

Children: John (1940)

Book Reference: Golf, Hut, EA & Rhodesia, Pioneers, Peerage, Carnelley, WMN

School: Wellington; Cambridge Univ.

General Information:

East Africa & Rhodesia - 26/8/54 - Mr John Berkley-Matthews, chairman and managing director of Kikuyu Estates Ltd., Kenya, and proprietor of the Sigona Golf Club and an adjacent inn about 10 miles from the city boundary of Nairobi on the main road to Nakuru, was shot and killed by Mau Mau terrorists last Thursday evening. Born in 1901 in County Durham, he was educated at Wellington College and Cambridge University, and then called to the Bar. He went to Kenya in 1928 as managing director of BEA Wattle Estates and Extract Co. Ltd., a private company of which his father was chairman; later the factory was sold to the Forestal Land, Timber and Railways Co. Ltd. Then he registered Kikuyu Estates Ltd. To grow wattle and pyrethrum (being one of the pioneers of the crop in Kenya) and run a herd of high-grade Jersey cattle. In 1938 he laid out the Sigona golf course. During the last war he served with the East Africa Reconnaisance Regiment as an armoured car troop leader in the Northern Frontier Province of Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Ceylon and India.
Pioneers - Wattle - Black wattle was first grown to supply wood fuel to the railway. Later it was grown mainly for the sake of its bark, which contains tannin. A tannin extract factory was built by Mr Berkeley-Matthews in 1929 near Sigona Golf Club.
Carnelley - Naivasha - Berkley Mathews who also owned Sigona Golf Course.
Gazette 30 Nov 1954 probate

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