Thomas Garrett Askwith (b 1911) was educated at Haileybury and Cambridge, taking the post of district officer, Kenya, 1936, Municipal African Affairs Officer, 1945, and Commissioner for Community Development, 1950, 1957-1960. He was the author of Kenya's progress... (Kampala, Nairobi, The Eagle Press, East African Literature Bureau, 1958) and From Mau Mau to Harambee: memoirs and memoranda of colonial Kenya (Cambridge, African Studies Centre, University of Cambridge, c1995).

Typescript drafts of Askwith's works on community development in Kenya, Community Development: an account of the use of traditional organizations in the promotion of community development in Kenya and Community Development - It Works, 20th century.

The papers were donated to the library by Askwith, via the Museum of Empire & Commonwealth, Bristol on 10th May 1995.

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Memoirs of Kenya, 1936-1961, as administrative officer, including settlement, native affairs (Mau Mau) and administration, typescript (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 1770); photocopied correspondence with Robert B. Edgerton, author of Mau Mau: an African crucible (London, Collier Macmillan, 1989), with other material relating to Askwith's service in Kenya (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 2100); Mau Mau: was it really necessary?, a brief account by Askwith of colonisation, the Mau Mau emergency and community development in Kenya (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 2166); memoranda by Askwith on community development and adult education in Kenya, 1960, with related items (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 1717 (4)).

Askwith | Thomas Garrett | b 1911 | colonial administrator

Kenya | Social conditions

Community development | Kenya