What the Delameres did for Kenya

The story of Kenya’s Europeans such as the 5th Baron Delamere, who died recently, is one of hard work. In late 1897 his grandfather, the 3rd Baron, rode his horse up the Rift Valley’s eastern escarpment into the highlands. For a year he had been trekking through Somalia’s burning deserts and now he saw cool waters, green grass and fresh winds. ‘Here was a promised land, the realisation of a Rider Haggard dream of a rich and fertile country hidden beyond impenetrable deserts and mountains… a modern Eldorado, waiting only for recognition,’ wrote his biographer Elspeth Huxley.

The 3rd Baron rose at 4 a.m. daily and over several decades he led on the development of East African agriculture, adapting Australian merino sheep and dairy cattle from Europe to tropical conditions, improving indigenous Boran beef herds, diving into poultry, wheat and just about everything else you see on a modern farm in Kenya today.