David Steel (5 October 1910 – 11 November 2002) was a Church of Scotland minister.
From 1949 to 1957 he was minister of St Andrew's Church, Nairobi, Kenya. For much of that time, the then British Colony of Kenya was in civil unrest due to the Mau Mau Uprising. Steel deplored the violence of the Mau Mau, but came to believe that the colonial government's response – which included detentions without trial and many executions – was disproportionate and immoral.
In January 1955 he spoke out against government policy in a sermon at St Andrew's Church. The local English-language newspaper criticised Steel's intervention in politics, in an editorial titled "Who will rid us of this turbulent priest?", [1] thus implicitly drawing a parallel between Steel and Thomas Becket.
Steel also helped to secure the early release of a number of detainees. [2]
Steel returned to Scotland in 1957, and spent the rest of his ministry there, serving as minister at St. Michael's Parish Church, Linlithgow. He was elected Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1974–75. He retired in 1976, and died in Edinburgh in 2002, aged 92.
One of his sons, also David Steel, now Lord Steel of Aikwood, is a British formerly Liberal Democrat politician and former party leader.
A part of Eastern Africa, the territory of what is known as Kenya has seen human habitation since the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic. The Bantu expansion from a West African centre of dispersal reached the area by the 1st millennium AD. With the borders of the modern state at the crossroads of the Bantu, Nilo-Saharan and Afro-Asiatic ethno-linguistic areas of Africa, Kenya is a truly multi-ethnic state.
The Kenya African National Union (KANU) is a Kenyan political party that ruled for nearly 40 years after Kenya's independence from British colonial rule in 1963 until its electoral loss in 2002. It was known as Kenya African Union (KAU) from 1944 to 1952. The KAU was banned by the colonial government from 1952 to 1960. It was re-established by James Gichuru in 1960 and renamed KANU on 14 May 1960 after a merger with Tom Mboya's Kenya Independence Movement.
The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising, Mau Mau revolt or Kenya Emergency, was a war in the British Kenya Colony (1920–1963) between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the Mau Mau, and the British authorities.
Jomo Kenyatta was a Kenyan anti-colonial activist and politician who governed Kenya as its Prime Minister from 1963 to 1964 and then as its first President from 1964 to his death in 1978. He was the country's first indigenous head of government and played a significant role in the transformation of Kenya from a colony of the British Empire into an independent republic. Ideologically an African nationalist and conservative, he led the Kenya African National Union (KANU) party from 1961 until his death.
David Martin Scott Steel, Baron Steel of Aikwood, is a British politician. Elected as Member of Parliament for Roxburgh, Selkirk, and Peebles, followed by Tweeddale, Ettrick, and Lauderdale, he served as the final leader of the Liberal Party, from 1976 to 1988. His tenure spanned the duration of the alliance with the Social Democratic Party, which began in 1981 and concluded with the formation of the Liberal Democrats in 1988.
Earl of Enniskillen is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1789 for William Cole, 1st Viscount Enniskillen. He had already been created Viscount Enniskillen in the Peerage of Ireland in 1776 and had inherited the title Baron Mount Florence, of Florence Court in the County of Fermanagh, which had been created in the Peerage of Ireland in 1760 for his father John Cole, who had earlier represented Enniskillen in the Irish House of Commons.
Dedan Kimathi Waciuri, born Kimathi wa Waciuri in what was then British Kenya, was the senior military and spiritual leader of the Mau Mau Uprising. Widely regarded as a revolutionary leader, he led the armed military struggle against the British colonial regime in Kenya in the 1950s until his capture in 1956 and execution in 1957. Kimathi is credited with leading efforts to create formal military structures within the Mau Mau, and convening a war council in 1953. He, along with Musa Mwariama and Muthoni Kirima, was one of three Field Marshals.
Evelyn Baring, 1st Baron Howick of Glendale, was Governor of Southern Rhodesia from 1942 to 1944, High Commissioner for Southern Africa from 1944 to 1951, and Governor of Kenya from 1952 to 1959. Baring played an integral role in the suppression of the Mau Mau uprising. Together with Colonial Secretary Alan Lennox-Boyd, Baring played a significant role in the government's efforts to deal with the Mau Mau uprising and see Kenya through to independence.
William Allen Jowitt, 1st Earl Jowitt, was a British Liberal Party, National Labour and then Labour Party politician and lawyer who served as Lord Chancellor under Clement Attlee from 1945 to 1951.
Colonel Walter Elliot was a British politician of Scotland's Unionist Party prominent in the interwar period. He was elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in 1918, and besides an interval of months in 1923–24 and 1945–46, remained in parliament until his death. His Cabinet roles were as the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in the National Government (1931–1935) of Ramsay MacDonald; as the Secretary of State for Scotland in the National Government (1935–1937) of Stanley Baldwin; and as Minister of Health in Neville Chamberlain's National Government (1937–1939) and the short-lived Chamberlain war ministry.
Thomas Joseph Odhiambo Mboya was a Kenyan trade unionist, educator, Pan-Africanist, author, independence activist, and statesman. He was one of the founding fathers of the Republic of Kenya. He led the negotiations for independence at the Lancaster House Conferences and was instrumental in the formation of Kenya's independence party – the Kenya African National Union (KANU) – where he served as its first Secretary-General. He laid the foundation for Kenya's capitalist and mixed economy policies at the height of the Cold War and set up several of the country's key labour institutions.
Treetops Hotel was a hotel in Aberdare National Park in Kenya near the township of Nyeri, 1,966 m (6,450 ft) above sea level on the Aberdare Range and in sight of Mount Kenya. First opened in 1932 by Eric Sherbrooke Walker, it was built into the tops of the trees of Aberdare National Park as a treehouse, offering the guests a close view of the local wildlife. The idea was to provide a machan experience in relative safety and comfort. From the original modest two-room tree house, it has grown into a 35-room hotel. The original structure was burned down by The Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA) during the 1954 Mau Mau Uprising, but the hotel was rebuilt near the same waterhole and has become fashionable for many of the rich and famous. It includes observation lounges and ground-level photographic hides from which guests can observe the local wildlife which comes to the nearby waterholes. The hotel closed in October 2021.
Ian Stuart McWalter Henderson, also known as Ian Stewart McWalter Henderson, was a British citizen known for his role in resolving the Mau Mau crisis in Kenya in the late 1950s and for managing the Bahraini General Directorate for State Security Investigations from 1966 to 1998. Henderson was dubbed the Butcher of Bahrain due to torture and the numerous human rights violations that were alleged to have taken place under his command there, especially during 1990s uprising in Bahrain.
Alan Tindal Lennox-Boyd, 1st Viscount Boyd of Merton, CH, PC, DL, was a British Conservative politician.
Waruhiu Itote, nom de guerreGeneral China, was one of the key leaders of the Mau Mau Uprising (1952–1960) in British Kenya alongside Dedan Kimathi, Stanley Mathenge, Kurito ole Kisio, Musa Mwariama and Muthoni Kirima.
John William Arthur was a medical missionary and Church of Scotland minister who served in British East Africa (Kenya) from 1907 to 1937. He was known simply as Doctor Arthur to generations of Africans.
Bildad Mwaganu Kaggia was a Kenyan nationalist, activist, and politician. Kaggia was a member of the Mau Mau Central Committee. After independence he became a Member of Parliament. He established himself as a militant, fiery nationalist who wanted to serve the poor and landless people. Because of this he fell out irreconcilably with Jomo Kenyatta.
The Kapenguria Six – Bildad Kaggia, Kung'u Karumba, Jomo Kenyatta, Fred Kubai, Paul Ngei, and Achieng' Oneko – were six leading Kenyan nationalists who were arrested in 1952, tried at Kapenguria in 1952–53, and imprisoned thereafter in Northern Kenya.
The Reverend Robert Anderson Philp was a Church of Scotland missionary in Kenya and acted as interpreter during the trial of Jomo Kenyatta in 1952.
When Britain emerged victorious from the Second World War, the Labour Party under Clement Attlee came to power and created a comprehensive welfare state, with the establishment of the National Health Service giving free healthcare to all British citizens, and other reforms to benefits. The Bank of England, railways, heavy industry, and coal mining were all nationalised. The most controversial issue was nationalisation of steel, which was profitable unlike the others. Economic recovery was slow, housing was in short supply, bread was rationed along with many necessities in short supply. It was an "age of austerity". American loans and Marshall Plan grants kept the economy afloat. India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon gained independence. Britain was a strong anti-Soviet factor in the Cold War and helped found NATO in 1949. Many historians describe this era as the "post-war consensus" emphasizing how both the Labour and Conservative parties until the 1970s tolerated or encouraged nationalisation, strong trade unions, heavy regulation, high taxes, and a generous welfare state.