Wilfrid Havelock

Sir Wilfrid Bowen Havelock (14 April 1912 – 6 April 2003) was a Kenyan politician, described in a 2003 obituary in the Daily Telegraph as "the last of the white leaders responsible for ensuring the smooth African accession to power".

Biography Havelock was born on 14 April 1912 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. His father was killed in World War I during the Battle of the Somme, and after his mother remarried, the family moved to East Africa when he was eight years old. After starting at the Kenya Grange School in Lumbwa, he was later sent to Imperial Service College. He retained the seat in the May 1948 general elections, in which he was returned unopposed. Initially a right-wing firebrand, he later realised that African nationalism had to be accommodated. He became the chairman of the elected members in 1950, and was also returned unopposed in the 1952 elections. He was appointed Minister of Local Government in 1954, and was narrowly re-elected in 1956 when he beat his opponent Richard Thompson by 23 votes.

He subsequently joined the New Kenya Group, Kenya's first multi-racial political party. He was re-elected again in the 1961 elections, and the following year he was appointed Minister of Agriculture, a position he held until 1963. He was knighted in 1963, and after independence, he was a member of the Coastal Regional Assembly until it was abolished. He later worked for the agricultural finance corporation, and acquired a number of hotels. After divorcing, he married Patricia Mumford in 1972.

Havelock died on 6 April 2003 in Nairobi.