John Nottingham: Briton who became Kenyan at heart

John Nottingham (1928-2018) was an anomaly. He was a Briton who became a ‘Kenyan at heart’. Some Brits must have considered him a traitor to his roots, to his race and to the government that brought him to Kenya in the first place.

Yet John was a man of conscience. A scholar who majored in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University, he was only 19 years old when, following his father’s insistence, he got a job with the British Colonial Office. It was 1952 and he was posted to Nyeri as a new District Officer.