Oscar Ferris Watkins
| Lieut.Col. Oscar Ferris Watkins | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||||
| Born | 1877 | ||||||
| Died | 1943 | ||||||
| Residence |
c/o Administration, Nairobi, BE Africa Director Military Labour. GHQ, Daressalam, East Africa [1917] Native Affairs Dept., Nairobi, East Africa [1921] | ||||||
| Occupation |
administrative armed services | ||||||
| |||||||
Contents
Notes
Office Notes
House Notes
1913.07.22 proposed by R.R. Marett, seconded by T.C. Hodson
1914.05.12 The Treasurer then made his statement as to Fellows in arrears with their subscriptions. It was resolved that ... Mr O.F. Watkins be written to by the Treasurer.
Notes From Elsewhere
Ag. Chief Native Commissioner
Lt Col Oscar Ferris Watkins CMG CBE DSO (1877–1943) was a British colonial administrator, Commandant of the East African Carrier Corps in the First World War. After the war he was acting Kenya Chief Native Commissioner and a Provincial Commissioner, and first editor of a Swahili newspaper Baraza.
He was the son of Rev Oscar Dan Watkins (1848–1926) - Archdeacon of Lucknow, and Elizabeth Martha née Ferris (1846–1928) born in Allahabad.
Educated at Marlborough and a postgraduate at All Souls College, Oxford, by virtue of being a Founder's Kin, Watkins enlisted in ranks of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in the Second Boer War subsequently joining the South African Police. In 1907 he moved to Kenya and as a junior District Commissioner in Kenya he was a magistrate in the Kenya Slave courts, freeing slaves from Arab slavers on the East African coast and developing a lasting interest in Swahili culture.
During the First World War Watkins set up the Carrier Corps and strove to organise an effective force while at the same time protecting the hundreds of thousands of African porters conscripted into the force from the excessive demands of the British Military. After the war, as acting Kenya Chief Native Commissioner his active stance in protecting the land rights of the native Kenya tribes against the encroachments of white Kenya Settler interests earned him the enmity of the governor Sir Edward Denham.
In 1917 he married Olga Florence née Baillie Grohman, widow of Thomas Acland Douglas Thompson (1881-1915); and daughter of William Adolf Baillie Grohman (1851–1921) and Florence née Nickalls (1861–1945). They had three daughters:
· Olga Penelope Ferris 'Pella' Watkins (1917–1992) who married Oliver Montgomery
· Grace Veronica Ferris 'Ronnie' Watkins (1920–2011) who married Brigadier Patrick Malcolm Hughes MBE (1911–1996)
· · Elizabeth June Ferris Watkins (1923–2012) who married Oliver Staniforth Knowles (1920–2008). She wrote biographies of both Olga· [1] and Oscar.· [2]
Publications
External Publications
[about]
Oscar from Africa - Biography of O.F. Watkins. Radcliff Press 1995
