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Name: WATKINS-PITCHFORD, Henry Otley (Dr.)
Birth Date: 1900 Southwark
Death Date: 12 Jan 1965 Lyme Regis
First Date: 1924
Last Date: 1965
Profession: Colonial Medical Service from 1924-34 in Zanzibar and then in Kenya from 1934-47 when he retired from the Colonial Service and opened a private practice, firstly in Dar es Salaam and then for many years in Thika
Area: Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, Thika, Likoni, Nairobi
Married: In Hersham, Surrey 13 Feb 1925 Nellie Newman b. ?16 Oct 1899 Sturminster, d. 1988 Weymouth
Children: Rosemary; Myrtle Eva (1929 Zanzibar); Jeremy John (1929 Zanzibar, twins-2017); Rupert Norman
Book Reference: EAWL, Staff 39, Colonial
War Service: Military service 1918
School: St. George's College Weybridge and St. Thos Hospital; MRCS (Eng), LRCP (Lond), DTM&H (Lond) Cert. London SHTM
General Information:
Retired again this time to Likoni, but immediately started practising medicine again in Likoni Village. He worked there until his death in 1965. Source: Mrs M.E. Penn
Staff 39 - Medical Officer, Medical Dept., Kenya in 1939, appointed 1934. Originally Medical Officer 1934. Transferred from Zanzibar. Appointed 1925
L.E.Y. Mbogoni, 'Aspects of Colonial Tanzania History', 2013 - In 1934 the Acting Brit Resident in Zanzibar informed CO in London re Dr H O W-P's ethical misconduct - disciplinary action. He, though married w. 3 chn, was romantically attracted to 14-yr-old Parsee schoolgirl, Gool Talati, his patient. This book goes into this affair in great detail.
Nat Probate Calendar
https://omnilogos.com/elusive-power-of-colonial-prey-sexualizing-schoolgirl-in-zanzibar-protectorate/ Corrie Decker: In 1934, Henry Otley Watkins-Pitchford, a doctor working for colonial Zanzibar’s Medical Services Department, stood accused of having “immoral intent” to seduce a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl. The girl, whom I call Dadi, was a Parsi student at St. Joseph’s Convent School, a French Holy Ghost Mission school, aided by the Department of Education in the British Protectorate of Zanzibar. The school catered mainly to Portuguese-speaking Catholics from Goa, the Parsi community and other South Asians, and some mainland Christians (Loimeier 2009:217-18; Turki 1987:102-3). Explaining how the affair had begun, the doctor testified that her beauty, “acknowledged even by members of her own sex,” enraptured him. The two had smiled at each other when their eyes had first met. This exchange had encouraged the man “to proceed further with the flirtation” because, as he said, “it is not usual for Parsee ladies to bestow smiles upon Europeans, and so I imagined I was very much favoured and, to some small extent, was foolishly proud of that fact.” It was rare for any local girl or woman in the predominantly Muslim Zanzibar Town to smile at or even make eye contact with strange European men. Though not Muslim, Parsi communities abided by the prevailing Zanzibari practice of keeping pubescent girls under close parental supervision before marriage. The doctor had urged the girl’s father, an acquaintance of his, to bring his daughters to his office for eye exams. He had treated Dadi several times, always in the presence of her father or mother. Upon discovering that a daughter of another acquaintance was attending Dadi’s school, he had persuaded the girl to give Dadi a letter that professed his love for her. Thus had begun a series of written communications between Dadi and the doctor. Dadi claimed that a schoolmate had penned all her letters to the doctor because she could not write in English herself. The British colonial administration, when it discovered the affair, delved deeply into the case, searching for any minute evidence that might prove whether or not the doctor had carried out a so-called immoral act with the girl.
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