Obituary: Sir
Michael Blundell
Saturday 22 October 2011 23:06
Michael Blundell, farmer and politician, born 7 April 1907, MBE 1943,
Commissioner European Settlement 1946-47, MLC Rift Valley Constituency Kenya
1948-63, Leader European Members 1952-54, Minister on Emergency War Council
Kenya 1954-55, Minister of Agriculture 1955-59, 1961-63, Leader New Kenya Group
1959-63, KBE 1962, Chairman Egerton Agricultural College 1962-72, married 1946
Geraldine Robarts (died 1983; one daughter), died Nairobi 1 February 1993.
MICHAEL BLUNDELL
was one of the architects of Kenya's racial harmony and stability. He was
committed to his adopted country, rich in experience of its landscape and wise
in his judgement of its history and politics. He was a grand old man of Africa,
consulted and revered by black and white Kenyans.
His origins were in
Yorkshire, in the Dales village of Appletreewick. Rather than going up to
Oxford from Wellington, he came out to Mombasa in 1925 at the age of 18 with
two tin trunks, a shotgun and pounds 100. After a short apprenticeship in
western Kenya, he farmed in the Rift Valley. Here he began the studies of
nature which led to his two authoritative guide books to Kenya's wildflowers:
The Wild Flowers of Kenya (1982) and Collins Guide to The Wild Flowers of East
Africa (1987).
It was perhaps
inevitable that a man of such forceful and persuasive personality should go
into politics. His popularity among the farmers was such that he was elected to
Kenya's legislative council in 1948. He won the Rift Valley seat, defeating the
settler leader Lord Francis Scott. His political manifesto was the defence of
the White Highlands and of white privilege. But his wartime service with
African troops in the Abyssinian campaign and in South-east Asia led him to
understand the growing aspirations and potential of the Africans and the need
for progress towards black government.
As the acknowledged
leader of the settler community when the Mau Mau emergency loomed, Blundell was
critical of the complacency of the Governor, Sir Philip Mitchell. When a war
council was formed by the new governor, Sir Evelyn Baring, in 1954, Blundell
was the sole elected member on it.
When he moved to
the Ministry of Agriculture in 1955 he saw the key to resolving the trauma of
Mau Mau. Land had been on the top of the list of Kikuyu grievances, so African
freehold tenure of farmland had to be assured. He set in train a plan to
demarcate and grant title to land and to develop cash crops. As the 87,000
detainees were released many went straight back to a stable farming life.
He came to know and
like the strong group of African elected members, including Daniel arap Moi and
Oginga Odinga, and saw the need for national unity. This led him to form the
multi-racial New Kenya Party. For this, he was vilified and treated as a traitor
by many of his European colleagues. His party was short-lived but it gave him
the chance to bridge the political divide. He showed the European and Asian
communities that they could live as Kenyans under African majority rule. He
retired from active politics in 1962, and a grateful British government
honoured him with a knighthood.
A man of many
talents, Blundell had even contemplated a musical career and studied singing in
Vienna in 1936. He threw himself with gusto into new careers on several boards
and as chairman of Kenya Breweries and of Nairobi Hospital. African education
became an absorbing interest for him. He chaired the Governors of Egerton
Agricultural College. Later it became a university and he endowed it with a
fund for student recreation. Nearest to his heart in recent years was a primary
school in Siaya, a poor district near Lake Victoria. He provided the money for
school buildings to replace the mud-walled classrooms.
He was the
confidante of many African politicians and was an honoured guest on national
occasions. It seemed natural that he should be the only European to come
forward and give evidence to the Electoral Review Committee in 1990. His views
were constantly sought by the international press. He rebutted their litanies
of impending doom by pointing out the relative stability of Kenya in a troubled
continent.
The loss of his
wife Gerry for whom he cared during her final illness was a great sorrow to
him. They had worked together to build their last farm at Subukia and their
final home in Nairobi. Fortunately, in the years that followed, he had the
constant companionship of his daughter Susie and of his two granddaughters. It
was Susie who helped him to write a final book of memoirs to follow So Rough A
Wind (1964).
(Courtesy of the Independent)
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