Jomo's Jailor

Grand Warrior of Kenya
The Biography of ‘Wouse’ – Leslie Whitehouse
By Elizabeth Watkins
Price £9.90 [$16.00 USA] plus £2 post and packing in the UK, £5 overseas

Many English settlers came to Kenya in the aftermath of the 1914-18 war. ‘Wouse’ [Leslie Whitehouse] was not like any of them. Born in a poor family in Suffolk and despite sparse education, he emigrated to Kenya where he became headmaster, then magistrate, then administrator. As a result of some potent inner chemistry, when Jomo Kenyatta and the Mau Mau detainees were sent to Turkana where he was District Commissioner, he developed a real rapport with the future first President.

They met through a hidden logic: the British sent Mzee to remote and arid Turkana precisely because he was Kenyatta – and Wouse was District Commissioner there precisely because he was Wouse; his earlier success in understanding the Maasai led to his being chosen for what was thought a difficult post with kindred people. After a murderous attack on Kenyatta by another prisoner, Wouse and Kenyatta began a lifelong friendship which changed the outlook of both men.

After Independence, Wouse took out Kenya citizenship and on retirement walked hundreds of miles through wild country demarcating Kenya’s Northern and Western boundaries. He continued to work as a magistrate until well into his eighties, when he was honoured with Kenya’s highest decoration, Grand Warrior of Kenya. An agnostic all his life, he left his estate to the Catholic Mission in Turkana.

Elizabeth Watkins’ biography gives a highly readable account of Wouse as his own man. It is also scholarly, drawing on new sources.

"It is fortunate that so knowledgeable and sympathetic a biographer has rescued from oblivion a character who asked so little for himself, contributed so much to the welfare of others, and added an intriguing and possibly pivotal chapter to the history of the Republic of Kenya." Elspeth Huxley

"Skilfully and most readably put together" Nicholas Harman in the Spectator

"The very readable story of the near legendary DC, Wouse" Antony Kirk-Greene in Corona

"A fascinating insight into the beneficial influence which an almost unknown colonial administrator had on the future president of Kenya" AAFI/AFICS Bulletin, Geneva

"A thoroughly enjoyable book from start to finish" Errol Trzebinski, biographer of Beryl Markham

"This excellent and most readable book, a first rate and lovingly told biography" Hugh Walker in the Journal of the Anglo-Somali Society

"As fascinating a biography as could be imagined" Africa Magazine, Kiltegan, Eire

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