Charles Kenneth Archer (1886-1965) began his professional life as a solicitor, and after practising in Newcastle upon Tyne for some years, was admitted as an advocate in Nairobi, Kenya in 1915. During the First World War he served in the King's African Rifles. After the war he became manager of a coffee plantation near Thika, Kenya. In 1919 he moved to Ruiru, where he remained for several years. At the same time he became extensively involved in Kenyan affairs, taking the chair and/or presidency of the Convention of Associations, 1921-1930, 1932-1936, the Kenya Settlement Committee, 1922-1925, the Ruiru Farmers'Association, 1921-1935, The Coffee Planters' Union of Kenya, 1925-1930 and the Kabete District Association, 1938-1948; he was also Vice-Chairman of the Kenya Association, 1932-1950. In 1923 he was appointed as one of the members of a deputation from Kenya which visited London to discuss the position of Indians in Kenya with the Secretary of State for the Colonies. He was also appointed Commissioner of the East Africa Pavilion of the Empire Exhibition in Johannesburg, 1936-1937, after which he resumed legal practice and settled at Kabete. He retired in 1955. In 1927 he married Ruth Maud Davis, with whom he had two sons.