THE KOLLOA AFFRAY, KENYA, 1950
District Officer Alan Stevens, Colonial Service
Brighton College Chapel, Brighton, Sussex
The Man
In September 1936, a thirteen-year old boy entered Leconfield House at Brighton College; fourteen years later that same school was erecting a memorial to him, as the promising career of an Oxford Graduate and Kenyan District Officer came to a bloody end.
Alan Stevens was the elder twin son of a civil servant from Worthing, Horace James Stevens, and his wife Nora. We know that after he left Brighton College he went to Oxford, and that in February 1946 he was posted as District Commissioner to Garissa in the North-Eastern Province of Kenya. If he left school in 1941, and then graduated from Oxford before training for the Colonial Service, he can’t have been involved actively in the war, which for a man of his age is strange – presumably there was a medical problem.
The general perception of the Colonial Officer in Africa is that of an individual who is often isolated in a huge tract of wild country, responsible for law and order and organisation over thousands of people, loyal to his charges, and they loyal to him over the long years of his service. In the early years that may have been true, but by the 1940s times had changed. In his foreword to Charles Allen’s ‘Tales From The Dark Continent’ Anthony Kirk-Greene points out that “the post-war District Officer was likely to be the leader of a District Team of professionals”, and that “in the decade of decolonization permanent postings were very rare: early retirements, staff shortages and changing priorities resulted in a musical-chair medley of postings which could leave the pupil-cadet in charge of a division only a few weeks after his arrival”.
Both of these observations are pertinent to Stevens’ story. Within two years of his appointment at Garissa he must have returned to England on leave, as June 1948 saw him sailing back to Mombasa to take up an appointment as District Officer of the Elgeyo-Marakwet District, in the Rift Valley. In March 1949 he took up the position of District Commissioner in Teita District, Coast Province, and then in November of that year he was appointed District Officer in Kiambu District, Central Province. Four positions in less than four years, and for the moment we’ll leave him there, at his headquarters in Kabarnet.
The Background
Even before the colonial administration Kenya, like the rest of East Africa, had had a history of prophet-based religious movements. In his article ‘Prophetic Movements: Eastern Africa' Matthew Kustenbauder explains that these were linked to a range of religions – worship of local or traditional deities, Islam and Christianity. Although their motivations were not, or not exclusively, anti-European, they were seen as being so by the colonial administrations, and so were usually suppressed. As a consequence they became increasingly associated with the idea of anti-European resistance. In the late 1930s one such movement, Dini ya Msambwa, appeared amongst the Luhya people of the Western Province. Its leader, its prophet, was called Elijah Masinde, and his message focussed on returning to the Luhya’s traditional religion, which required the removal of all European presence. (The movement worshipped a “creator divinity” named Wele or Msambwa, who was closely associated with Mount Elgon, on the Ugandan/ Kenyan border. The confusion of religious influences can be inferred from the mountain being referred to within the Dini ya Msambwa as Zion).
In 1948 Masinde and two of his followers were arrested, tried and found guilty of treason. They were deported to the island of Lamu, off the Kenyan coast, where they would be held until 1960. His ideas, however, had spread, had been picked up in the Central Province by the Pokot people, and were being promoted in Stevens' Baringo District by a Pokot named Lukas Pkech. With his specific anti-European messages Pkech drew attention to himself, and in August 1949 he and several associates were arrested, charged with belonging to an unlawful movement, and sentenced to thirty months hard labour. Hindsight suggests it would have been wiser to place him with Masinde in Lamu, as early in 1950 Pkech escaped from prison, and returned to Baringo, where he resumed his preaching, promoting the worship of Wele, and prophesying that the Europeans would soon be driven out.
The Action
As District Officer Alan Stevens could not allow an escaped prisoner, the leader of a proscribed organisation, to promote sedition in that way, and sooner or later there would have to be a confrontation. It happened on April 24th, at Kolloa, where Stevens and a force of police confronted Pkech and three hundred spear-carrying followers. Or maybe Pkech confronted Stevens; the exact order of events is unclear. Whether Pkech’s men actually attacked the British force, or threatened to, or whether Stevens cold-bloodedly ordered his men to fire, or whether someone panicked under the pressure, depends on whose account one believes. What is clear is that by the end of the afternoon Pkech and twenty-eight of his followers had been shot dead, and four of the police force had been killed: Assistant Superintendent of Police, George Taylor; Assistant Inspector of Police, Robert Cameron; an unnamed African policeman; District Officer Alan Stevens. Fair to assume that, whether before or after Pkech’s death, the three British present had been targeted.
Afterwards
With the deaths the Dini ya Msambwa came to an end in the region. The local people were disarmed, and forced to sell off livestock to pay compensation. Within a few months a much greater insurrection began among the Kikuyu, the largest ethnic group in Kenya, and Stevens’ skirmish in Baringo would become a forgotten footnote to a larger conflict. Elijah Masinde would be released in 1960, but then imprisoned again in the early sixties , and again in the late 1970s. He died in 1987, and has a page to himself in Wikipedia. Alan Stevens has to settle for a memorial in his old school’s listed chapel.
IN MEMORY OF ALAN JAMES STEVENS, B.A. (OXON) LECONFIELD HOUSE 1936-1941 COLONIAL ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICE KILLED IN A TRIBAL RISING NEAR LAKE BARINGO, KENYA ON APRIL 24TH 1950 AGED 27 YEARS "FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH"
COMMENT ON THIS STORY ON FACEBOOK
Sources
Photos
Brighton College Chapel - from Wikimedia Commons, by Anon
Pokot tribesmen - from Theafashionada.wordpress.com
Sites
Prophetic Movements: Eastern Africa by Matthew Kustenbauder – from http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:5326138
Mau Mau & Nationhood: Arms, Authority & Narration edited by E. S. Atieno Odhiambo, John Lonsdale
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah_Masinde
http://business.highbeam.com/3548/article-1G1-130225741/colonial-government-killed-50-cold-blood
http://allafrica.com/stories/200503140465.html
Kenya Gazette online
http://www.london-gazette.co.uk
www.Ancestry.co.uk
Other
Tales From The Dark Continent, edited Charles Allen (Andre Deutsch, 1979)
© Jonathan Dewhirst 2013, unless otherwise stated
Alan Stevens was the elder twin son of a civil servant from Worthing, Horace James Stevens, and his wife Nora. We know that after he left Brighton College he went to Oxford, and that in February 1946 he was posted as District Commissioner to Garissa in the North-Eastern Province of Kenya. If he left school in 1941, and then graduated from Oxford before training for the Colonial Service, he can’t have been involved actively in the war, which for a man of his age is strange – presumably there was a medical problem.
The general perception of the Colonial Officer in Africa is that of an individual who is often isolated in a huge tract of wild country, responsible for law and order and organisation over thousands of people, loyal to his charges, and they loyal to him over the long years of his service. In the early years that may have been true, but by the 1940s times had changed. In his foreword to Charles Allen’s ‘Tales From The Dark Continent’ Anthony Kirk-Greene points out that “the post-war District Officer was likely to be the leader of a District Team of professionals”, and that “in the decade of decolonization permanent postings were very rare: early retirements, staff shortages and changing priorities resulted in a musical-chair medley of postings which could leave the pupil-cadet in charge of a division only a few weeks after his arrival”.
Both of these observations are pertinent to Stevens’ story. Within two years of his appointment at Garissa he must have returned to England on leave, as June 1948 saw him sailing back to Mombasa to take up an appointment as District Officer of the Elgeyo-Marakwet District, in the Rift Valley. In March 1949 he took up the position of District Commissioner in Teita District, Coast Province, and then in November of that year he was appointed District Officer in Kiambu District, Central Province. Four positions in less than four years, and for the moment we’ll leave him there, at his headquarters in Kabarnet.
The Background
Even before the colonial administration Kenya, like the rest of East Africa, had had a history of prophet-based religious movements. In his article ‘Prophetic Movements: Eastern Africa' Matthew Kustenbauder explains that these were linked to a range of religions – worship of local or traditional deities, Islam and Christianity. Although their motivations were not, or not exclusively, anti-European, they were seen as being so by the colonial administrations, and so were usually suppressed. As a consequence they became increasingly associated with the idea of anti-European resistance. In the late 1930s one such movement, Dini ya Msambwa, appeared amongst the Luhya people of the Western Province. Its leader, its prophet, was called Elijah Masinde, and his message focussed on returning to the Luhya’s traditional religion, which required the removal of all European presence. (The movement worshipped a “creator divinity” named Wele or Msambwa, who was closely associated with Mount Elgon, on the Ugandan/ Kenyan border. The confusion of religious influences can be inferred from the mountain being referred to within the Dini ya Msambwa as Zion).
In 1948 Masinde and two of his followers were arrested, tried and found guilty of treason. They were deported to the island of Lamu, off the Kenyan coast, where they would be held until 1960. His ideas, however, had spread, had been picked up in the Central Province by the Pokot people, and were being promoted in Stevens' Baringo District by a Pokot named Lukas Pkech. With his specific anti-European messages Pkech drew attention to himself, and in August 1949 he and several associates were arrested, charged with belonging to an unlawful movement, and sentenced to thirty months hard labour. Hindsight suggests it would have been wiser to place him with Masinde in Lamu, as early in 1950 Pkech escaped from prison, and returned to Baringo, where he resumed his preaching, promoting the worship of Wele, and prophesying that the Europeans would soon be driven out.
The Action
As District Officer Alan Stevens could not allow an escaped prisoner, the leader of a proscribed organisation, to promote sedition in that way, and sooner or later there would have to be a confrontation. It happened on April 24th, at Kolloa, where Stevens and a force of police confronted Pkech and three hundred spear-carrying followers. Or maybe Pkech confronted Stevens; the exact order of events is unclear. Whether Pkech’s men actually attacked the British force, or threatened to, or whether Stevens cold-bloodedly ordered his men to fire, or whether someone panicked under the pressure, depends on whose account one believes. What is clear is that by the end of the afternoon Pkech and twenty-eight of his followers had been shot dead, and four of the police force had been killed: Assistant Superintendent of Police, George Taylor; Assistant Inspector of Police, Robert Cameron; an unnamed African policeman; District Officer Alan Stevens. Fair to assume that, whether before or after Pkech’s death, the three British present had been targeted.
Afterwards
With the deaths the Dini ya Msambwa came to an end in the region. The local people were disarmed, and forced to sell off livestock to pay compensation. Within a few months a much greater insurrection began among the Kikuyu, the largest ethnic group in Kenya, and Stevens’ skirmish in Baringo would become a forgotten footnote to a larger conflict. Elijah Masinde would be released in 1960, but then imprisoned again in the early sixties , and again in the late 1970s. He died in 1987, and has a page to himself in Wikipedia. Alan Stevens has to settle for a memorial in his old school’s listed chapel.
IN MEMORY OF ALAN JAMES STEVENS, B.A. (OXON) LECONFIELD HOUSE 1936-1941 COLONIAL ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICE KILLED IN A TRIBAL RISING NEAR LAKE BARINGO, KENYA ON APRIL 24TH 1950 AGED 27 YEARS "FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH"
COMMENT ON THIS STORY ON FACEBOOK
Sources
Photos
Brighton College Chapel - from Wikimedia Commons, by Anon
Pokot tribesmen - from Theafashionada.wordpress.com
Sites
Prophetic Movements: Eastern Africa by Matthew Kustenbauder – from http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:5326138
Mau Mau & Nationhood: Arms, Authority & Narration edited by E. S. Atieno Odhiambo, John Lonsdale
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah_Masinde
http://business.highbeam.com/3548/article-1G1-130225741/colonial-government-killed-50-cold-blood
http://allafrica.com/stories/200503140465.html
Kenya Gazette online
http://www.london-gazette.co.uk
www.Ancestry.co.uk
Other
Tales From The Dark Continent, edited Charles Allen (Andre Deutsch, 1979)
© Jonathan Dewhirst 2013, unless otherwise stated
