White people in Kenya

White people in Kenya

George Adamson · Louis Leakey · Simon Shaw
Total population
62,000 30,000 Kenyan citizens 32,000 British expatriates
Regions with significant populations
Nairobi Province, Rift Valley Province
Languages
Predominantly English
Religion
Mainly Christianity or no religion, minorities practicing Judaism

There is a minor but relatively prominent group of white people in Kenya, mainly descendants of British settlers from the colonial era.

History

After the end of the British colonial rule in 1963, realizing that a minority rule in the way of the Rhodesian and South African apartheid régimes was no longer possible after the Mau-Mau uprising, the majority of white settlers departed within one decade, under a willing-buyer-willing-seller scheme, which was largely financed by secret British subsidies. The remaining small minority of white people has mostly taken Kenyan citizenship. There were an estimated 30,000 white Kenyan citizens in Kenya as of 2006. There are also British expatriates who may be of any race; according to the BBC, they numbered at about 32,000 that same year.

Socioeconomics

Economically, virtually all white people in Kenya belong to middle and upper middle class. They formerly clustered in the country's highland region, the so-called "White Highlands", where the Cholmondeley (Delamere) family, as one of the few remaining white landowners, still owns over 100,000 acres (400 km²) of farmland in the Rift Valley. Nowadays, only a small minority of them still are landowners (livestock and game ranchers, horticulturists and farmers), whereas the majority work in the tertiary sector: in finance, import, air transport, and hospitality.

Societal integration

Apart from isolated individuals such as anthropologist and conservationist Richard Leakey, who has retired, Kenyan white people have virtually completely retreated from Kenyan politics, and are no longer represented in public service and parastatals, from which the last remaining staff from colonial times retired in the 1970s.

The recent homicide case of the white Kenyan dairy and livestock farmer and game rancher Thomas Cholmondeley, a descendant of British aristocrats, has brought into question the class bias of the judicial system of the Commonwealth of Nations country and the resentment of many Kenyans toward what is perceived as white privilege. The book and movie White Mischief told the tale slightly involving an earlier member of the Cholmondeley family, the fourth Baron Delamere who was married to Diana Broughton, whose lover was murdered in Nairobi in the 1940s. Her first husband was tried and acquitted. See also Happy Valley set.

Notable people

Lived/living in Kenya

• George Adamson – conservationist
• Joy Adamson – conservationist
• Michael Asher - author & explorer
• Esmond Bradley Martin - conservationist
• Thomas P. G. Cholmondeley – land-owner, convicted of manslaughter
• Ian Duncan – rally driver
• Jason Dunford – swimmer
• David Dunford – swimmer
• Aidan Hartley – news correspondent
• Mark N. Hopkins – filmmaker
• Kuki Gallman –(Italian) author
• Geoffrey William Griffin – educator
• Ewart Grogan – explorer, entrepreneur and pre-independence politician
• Louis Leakey – archaeologist and naturalist
• Mary Leakey - archaeologist
• Meave Leakey – paleontologist
• Richard Leakey - paleontologist, archaeologist and conservationist
• Philip Leakey – politician
• Louise Leakey – artist, writer and archaeologist
• Beryl Markham – author, pilot, horse trainer and adventurer
• Emmanuel de Merode (Belgian) - anthropologist, conservationist, pilot
• Peter Poole - executed for murder
• Joan Root - conservationist, ecological activist and Oscar-nominated filmmaker
• Alan Root - conservationist, ecological activist and Oscar-nominated filmmaker
• Daphne Sheldrick - conservationist
• Saba Douglas-Hamilton - wildlife conservationist

Born or raised in Kenya

• Neil Aggett (emigrated to South Africa) – anti-apartheid activist
• Michael Bear (Lord Mayor) (emigrated to UK) - 683rd Lord Mayor of the City of London
• Arap Bethke (emigrated to Mexico) - actor
• Jamie Dalrymple (emigrated to UK) - cricket player, all-rounder who played for England.
• Richard Dawkins (emigrated to UK) - ethologist, evolutionary biologist, writer
• Chris Froome (emigrated to UK) – road racing cyclist
• Elizabeth Furse (emigrated to (USA) - U.S. Congresswoman
• Peter Hain (emigrated to UK)– Labour party politician
• Tania Harcourt-Cooze (emigrated to UK)– model
• Elspeth Huxley (emigrated to UK) - polymath, writer, journalist, broadcaster, magistrate, environmentalist, farmer, and government advisor
• Melissa Auf der Maur (emigrated to Canada) - Musician
• Colin Leakey (emigrated to UK) – botanist
• Edmund Morris (emigrated to USA) - writer
• Derek Pringle (emigrated to UK) - cricket player, played for England.
• Simon Shaw (emigrated to UK) - rugby union player who plays at lock for Wasps, England and The British and Irish Lions.
• Jules Sylvester (emigrated to USA) - animal wrangler, TV presenter
• Roger Whittaker (emigrated to UK) - folk musician

See also

• Anglo-African
• White African
• List of White Africans