Terence Gavaghan

Terence Gavaghan (1 October 1922 – 10 August 2011) was a British colonial administrator. As a colonial district officer in Kenya, he was responsible for six detention centres in Mwea during the Mau Mau insurrection of the 1950s.

Responsible for the widespread implementation of torture against Kenyan detainees during the insurrection, Gavaghan was identified by detention camp prisoner Espon Makanga as one of three colonial officers who developed the 'dilution technique' and also killed Kenyans: "They beat us from the day we arrived, with sticks, with their fists, kicking us with their boots. They beat us to make us work. They beat us to force us to confess our Mau Mau oath. After a year I couldn't take it any longer. Gavaghan had won."

Early life Terence Gavaghan was born on 1 October 1922 in Allahabad, India. His father was the Comptroller General of the Indian Civil Service. He died in Terence's youth.

Career

Gavaghan joined the British colonial administration in Kenya in 1944. In the 1950s the Mau Mau Uprising broke out in Kenya against British colonial rule. In April 1957 Gavaghan, then serving as District Officer of Nyeri, was appointed to the new post of District Officer in Charge of Rehabilitation by Special Commissioner Carruthers Johnston. Unlike other district officers, who reported to Commissioner of Community Development Tom Askwith, Gavaghan answered directly to Johnston. Gavaghan was tasked with the speedy rehabilitation of 30,000 prisoners in the Pipeline, a collection of British internment camps for suspected Mau Mau fighters. Gavaghan was selected due to his reputation as an outsider as a result of being ethnically Irish, as well as other officers who found themselves off-put by his "renegade mentality and insatiable sexual appetite."

In his later life he became afflicted by Alzheimer's disease. He died on 10 August 2011.