James Beauttah

James Beauttah (1889–1985) was a Kenyan anti-colonial activist and political leader.

Early life James Beauttah was born Mbutu wa Ruhara at Lower Muhito in Mukurwe-ini in present day Nyeri county. Orphaned at an early age, he fled Nyeri for Maragua in Fort Hall, present day Murang'a county, when he was 12 years old to engage in some form of labour. It is here that he would get to move with his then employer to Nairobi (in 1903). Later on (in 1904), he would move to Mombasa and, from there, he attended the CMS school at Freretown and then undertook a telegraphist course at the CMS school in Rabai.

At baptism in Freretown by the Reverend Canon Harry Kerr Binns, he was christened James Mbuto. He, later on in 1918, while working in Mombasa, anglicized his name Mbutu to Beauttah, allegedly so as to be able to circumvent then racist colonial restrictions that would've prevented him from buying shares of Brooke Bond, a white tea company operating in Kenya at the time.

Whilst training as a telegraphist at Rabai, he lived in nearby Mazeras. It is at Mazeras that he would later raise his young family comprising his wife who came from the local Mijikenda community and his children including Henry Rohara. After the training he was posted to the post office in Mombasa and then to Buganda, in 1911. His tour of duty would also take him to Kikuyu, Nairobi, Naivasha, Eldoret, Kisumu, Maseno, among other Kenyan towns as he was being transferred at least once every 2 years. He served in Mombasa, Nairobi and Uganda again severally. Indian leader and Legco member, Isher Dass, collected the funds for his trip.

When, on 24 September 1930, Kenyatta returned to Kenya, Beauttah welcomed him and his wife, Grace Wahu, who had travelled to Mombasa to receive her husband, to his Mombasa home. Beauttah would be the leader of a big delegation from Central Kenya assembled by the Association to welcome Kenya back home once again in 1946 when he returned from a subsequent visit to Britain.

Beauttah was a founder member of the Kenya African Study Union and its successor, the Kenya African Union serving as an Executive Committee member of the former and a Vice Chairman (representing Central Kenya) of the latter. Njiiri was the son of Senior Chief Njiiri wa Karanja, a known collaborator of the colonial government. Beauttah's loss in the elections would create a permanent barrier between him and Kenyatta that would never be reconciled. His grandson, Oscar Kiragu Beauttah, had, until his death chaired the Board of Management at Lang'ata High School and led the school's efforts to thwart grabbers of its land in Nairobi's upmarket Lang'ata neighbourhood where some members of the family, including his son Henry Rohara, have resided for decades.