TbT: Macmillan

General TBT
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The first building to have both electricity and running water in Kenya was Canadian-American William Northrup Macmillan’s Juja House. Macmillan is pictured here.

The derelict remains of Juja House are at the base of Mt. Kilimambogo, atop which he himself is buried.

As the photos attest, Macmillan was a burly man. One photo in which he is featured alone is from the U.S. Library of Congress.

In the other photo, presumably taken at his farm, he is pictured with locals. The man standing next to him - if I’m not mistaken, is Francis Hall, the man who built Fort Hall, which is Murang’a town today.

Macmillan owned a lodge, Grogan Lodge, in Nairobi. When his maid, an African American called Louise Decker, died, he bequeathed the lodge to her.

Inset is a plaque on top of Mount Kilimambogo that marks where Macmillan buried Louise. He died afterwards and was himself also interred atop the same mountain.
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malizia TBT, sema alijenga Macmillan Libraly

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Alijenga Mcmillan library…

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sema he brought two idols from Naija, Ju and Ja

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When the final story of the McMillan Memorial Library is written, it will be about a person - William Northrup McMillan — who bequeathed part of his wealth to the citizens of Nairobi — and had it protected by an Act of Parliament. That was the work of a genius.

On the other side, McMillan was a maverick: How do you leave a will that states you would like to be buried on top of a mountain! Anyway, it happened and mourners were forced to hike a mountain populated with hundreds of buffaloes. McMillan is buried near the summit of Ol Donyo Sabuk where his grave overlooks the thousands of acres he owned — The Juja Farm.

Juja is not a local name, but was adopted from McMillan’s Juja Farm, which expanded from near Ruiru and encompassed Mt Ol Donyo Sabuk to the east. It is near the summit of this mountain that McMillan, his wife, Lady Lucie, the househelp — Louis Decker- and the family dog are buried!

Private records from McMillan’s estate indicate that sometimes in 1900 when he arrived in Nairobi he was carrying two statues he had bought in West Africa. He had been told that one was Ju and the other was Ja and had been asked to preserve them – otherwise he would perish at sea. (He actually died at sea!)

McMillan then settled on the road to Thika where he bought some 19,000 acres, at a time when nobody was allowed to own more than 5,000 acres. Privately, he attributed it to the powers of Ju and Ja idols and as a result he named the large expanse Ju-Ja Farm.

Because of the numerous superstition that surrounded Juja Farm, it became a no-go zone and locals used to fear entry into a land they always heard had been jinxed. As a result, McMillan’s wife took the two idols from the house and buried them in Ndarugu valley, near Thika Town. As a result, the name Juja started entering into annals of colonial history in Kenya and interestingly refused to give way to its former name ‘Weru wa Ndarugu’, the Ndarugu plains.

The loss of Ju and Ja idols from his Juja House infuriated McMillan. He built a massive house near the mountain where he once hosted former American President Theodore Roosevelt (they used to hunt together in Juja) and Winston Churchill, when he was a minister of State for Colonies. The house, which once showcased the excesses of the dark side of British settler behaviours — there was an adjacent house that housed Somali women — has remained one of the standing embodiments of Juja. Though the verdant coffee plantations - a result of cheap African labour — as described by early travellers are no more, the library will for years be a landmark for Nairobi since Juja Farm is no more.

Like many other properties donated for public good, and had it not been protected, this library would perhaps have been brought down or sold.

We have not yet forgotten the saga surrounding Lady Northey Home on Nairobi’s State House Avenue, which was built in 1919 by Governor Northey’s wife.

While the land was allocated to Lady Northey Home Registered Trustees for 61 years (from 1958) to run a children’s home they naively transferred it to the City Council in July 1965 to hold in trust. The council later in 1994 hived a chunk of the land and tried to the transfer it to a private firm. A similar attempt had been done on McMillan library before somebody realised that there was indeed a MacMillan Library Act (Cap 217) that stood between the developers and the council. As the only landmark building in Nairobi that is specifically protected by law, this library will remain for years as a showcase of Victorian architecture.

The most important thing is that nobody will ever change its design and ownership.

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“All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages,” so wrote William Shakespeare in the comedy As you like it. However, a house on the slopes of Mt Kilimambogo, a quiet character in the world stage for almost a century, has refused to make an exit. To many, the white highlands would probably be further towards the central parts of the country, concentrated around the Aberdares and Mt Kenya. However, towards the beginning of the sunny stretch just past Thika on the road to Garissa, Lord William Northrup Macmillan built a house that is imposing even by today’s standards.

The Macmillan House now being rehabilitated as a tourist attraction can be said to be a monument of world politics for the last 100 years. It was a mansion at one stage, a military hospital during the First World War and a prison in the Second World War. In 1918, Macmillan built the house, more like a mini fortress that has come to be known as the Macmillan House or Ol Donyo Sabuk mansion. A glance at its walls tells of painstaking adherence to detail. It is built wide enough to be a protection and is a testament to the architecture of the time. Later, its hefty build facilitated its services in the first and second world wars. Macmillan owned this house and its surrounding lands at the foot of Oldonyo Sabuk Mountain, stretching towards 14 Falls. An ambitious man, it is said he wanted to own the mountain. Despite its distance from Naivasha, the mansion retained the happy valley atmosphere with lavish parties. Colonel Ewart Groan is said to have organised wild parties here. These parties made the locals nickname the house kilav (the club). The house was built with 32 bedrooms and it is said Sir Macmillan and his wife stayed in each wing for six months before moving to the other. Leading down into the foundation of the house is an underground bunker with a tunnel that led to out of the house. It is in this meeting room and the one above it that the colonialists held planning meetings during the Mau Mau struggle.

Apart from its links with the settler side of the bloody struggle, the house has hosted several big shots. They include Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the US, Former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill and British Colonial Governor Sir Evelyn Baring. Later when the house served as a prison, Duke Amadeo of Aosta, the Governor of Italian East African Forces and Commander in Chief of the Italian Forces was imprisoned and died here in 1942. The Duke led Italy’s invasion of British Somaliland in 1940, but was driven back and later captured in Ethiopia. One of Kenya’s celebrated politicians, Tom Mboya, was born on this farm in 1930 where his father worked as a labourer. Macmillan died in 1925 and was buried on Mt Kilimambogo. Beside him is his faithful servant Louise Decker. The grave of his dog is also on the mountain. After his death, his wife Lady Lucie built the Macmillan Library in Nairobi Central Business District in his honour. For a long time, the house was in the hands of Muka Mukuu Co-operative, but in 1999 the Tourist Trust Fund embarked on a rehabilitation exercise in a quest to have the house marked as a heritage site.

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Private records from McMillan Memorial Library indicate that sometimes in 1900 when Lord William Northrop Macmillan arrived in Nairobi he was carrying two statues he had bought in West Africa. He had been told that one was Ju and the other was Ja and had been asked to preserve them – otherwise he would perish at sea.

McMillan then settled on the road to Thika where he bought some 19,000 acres, at a time when nobody was allowed to own more than 5,000 acres. Privately, he attributed it to the powers of Ju and Ja idols and as a result he named the large expanse Ju-Ja Farm.

Because of the numerous superstition that surrounded Juja Farm, it became a no-go zone and locals used to fear entry into a land they always heard had been jinxed. As a result, McMillan’s wife took the two idols from the house and buried them in Ndarugu valley, near Thika Town. As a result, the name Juja started entering into annals of colonial history in Kenya and interestingly refused to give way to its former name ‘Weru wa Ndarugu’, the Ndarugu plains.

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Macmillan’s castle
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It’s one of those old houses where you wish the walls were filled with pictures of those who once lived in it. Macmillan’s castle, close to Fourteen Falls in Thika is one of those.

John Thomas Musembi, the administration manager of Muka Mukuu farmer’s cooperative whose offices are housed in part of the castle, is giving us the spiel on the house.

“This office is where Macmillan’s kitchen was,” he begins his narration of the 32-roomed castle that has seen the likes of Ewart Grogan, Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Evelyn Baring and Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta who became the commander of the Italian forces in what was known as the East African campaign when Italy declared war on the United Kingdom and France on 10 June 1940 during the Second World War.

Diverging a little from colonial times, Musembi tells us about Muka Mukuu.

“This means the first wife in Kamba language. She was the powerful one and well respected for she chose the younger wives for her husband.”

“In 1968, the co-operative bought land from the Macmillan family to plant coffee and sisal.”

"However, the cooperative fell on bad times because of mismanagement where the officials took off with the bounty found in the castle including the gates at the entrance,” says Musembi.

The single storied, high-ceiling castle was built in the early 1900s by Macmillan with bunkers underground.

“The idea to arrest Kenyatta was mooted in this room,” narrates Musembi. It’s one of the bedrooms that overlooks the Ol Donyo Sabuk hills.

The rooms are empty save for dusty scraps of furniture and files. Nothing of Macmillan is here, not even a discarded photo - but the house was gazetted on 19th December 2008 and plans are underway to turn it into a museum.

Macmillan or Lord William Northrop Macmillan was born in 1872 in the US. According to Musembi, he was a self-made millionaire and a decorated soldier and even though he was not Scotsman, he was knighted by the King of England.

That does not surprise me for reaching the other end of the house through the enormous living room that faced the beloved mountain where he is buried with his wife, servant and dog, the man played a huge role in helping keep the protectorate under the British regime otherwise why would he have built a castle on top of bunkers running the entire length of the house.

Musembi lifts the lid off the floor to reveal a wooden ladder leading to the underground where secret meetings were held. It’s dark and full of debris and the tiny hovel reminds me of the slave bunkers in Zanzibar. Musembi points to Sir Evelyn Baring’s bunker.

He was the governor of Kenya from 1952 to 1959 during the Mau Mau uprising. He imposed the death penalty for anyone administering the Mau Mau oath.

“The late Tom Mboya was born on Macmillan’s sisal estate,” continues Musembi telling us about one of Kenya’s first fire-band politicians who fell to an assassins bullet in 1969 at the young age of 39.

Macmillan was a massive man, seven feet tall and had to turn sideways to walk through a door. The couple never had children. On the death of her husband in 1925, Lady Macmillan built the Macmillan Memorial Library in the centre of Nairobi for the white community, opened in 1931.

That was during the days of segregation. Today, Macmillan Library though still imposing and always full of readers, is quite a mess from the inside with dusty shelves and poorly kept books.

Researching about the library, I’m surprised to learn that it has Richard Minsky’s work. He was a critically acclaimed artist whose innovative use of materials for book arts for over 30 years has made his work collector’s items worth millions.

Examples of Minsky’s work are held in major museum and library collections worldwide, including The Getty Research Library, Los Angeles, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, as well as the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the McMillan Library, Nairobi. He still lectures actively to promote book art for education.

Macmillan’s castle was, like Grogan’s and Delamere’s castles, a scene for scandals, affairs and wife-swapping parties. It was nicknamed Kilavu for club house by the locals.

It was here that American President Roosevelt lost his presidency when he accompanied Macmillan to Grogan’s house in Chiromo and on the way, ruffled some feathers of the Indian community – the press picked up the story and Roosevelt was shown the door.

Macmillan’s abode was also the site for Hollywood blockbusters like the 1950’s Mogambo starring Ava Gardener, Grace Kelly and Clark Gable.

Today, the estate which covered over 100,000 acres is privately owned and some of it subdivided into 2 to 3 acres plots for the co operative members.

Macmillan and his wife lie on Ol Donyo Sabuk above the flat plains and if things work out according to the will he left, they may be shifting the bodies to the summit even if it’s more than eight decades later.