FindaGrave Harold Dold Hill BIRTH 11 May 1881 Salem, Sarah Baartman District Municipality, Eastern Cape, South Africa DEATH 19 Sep 1963 (aged 82) BURIAL All Souls  Cathedral Machakos, Machakos, Kenya

Source: Lady Thorp KFA In WW1 mostly served buying cattle for Army supplies. Badly mauled by leopard in Masai country. - 'In 1904 the cousins Harold and Clifford Hill, who had come from SA, caught 12 ostrich chicks on the Kapiti Plains and reared them at Limuru. The following year, with Mr Perceval [sic], they bought 80 birds from a German syndicate and put them on a train at Voi to take them to Limuru. The train, however, proved so uncongenial that 10 birds died and the rest were taken out at Kiu and walked to Limuru - a difficult safari, one would imagine.'

Playne - The breeding of ostriches is not lost sight of in the Machakos District. Messrs C.A. and H.D. Hill carry on the industry on the Katelembo Farm, Wami Farm, and Kilima Farm, totalling 10,000 acres. The property is well watered by a river and several springs, and is situated some 15 miles from Kapiti Station and some 4 miles from the Machakos boma. Mr C.A. Hill came to BEA in 1904 and Mr H.D. Hill in 1905 from the Transvaal Civil Service, both having been born and brought up on ostrich farms. They now have about 150 full-grown birds and chicks. Some 400 birds have been incubated, but a great many have been sold. The birds are herded in troops of from 30 to 50. Messrs Hill have been selling feathers since 1905. ……

Land 1909 - C.A. & H.D. Hill - Grazing and agricultural, 20 acres - Machakos - 26/3/08 - Leasehold for 99 years from 1/4/08 - Registered 7/7/09

Land - 1910 - Clifford A. and Harold D. Hill - Agricultural, 9.922 acres - Machakos - 5/8/09 - Leasehold for 10 years from 1/7/10 - Registered 3/12/10

Land - 1912 - C.A. and H.D. Hill - Grazing and agricultural, 2678.4 acres - Machakos - 19/5/08 - Leasehold for 99 years from 1/12/11 - Registered 19/1/12

Pioneers - The Hills of Katelembo - J.K.R. Thorp - I stood in great awe of Harold Hill, my father-in-law, not so much because of his reputation with gun and rifle, but rather for his complete mastery of an environment strange to me, his forthright attitude, his inability to suffer fools gladly and his amazing store of physical energy. Harold Hill came to East Africa at the age of 24, and in 1906 took up land in partnership with his cousin Clifford, on the slopes of the Mua Hills, in the Machakos District. From his first mud-and-thatch homestead on a rocky knoll he could look 120 miles southwards across the game-covered Athi and Kapiti plains to the snowy table-top of 19,000 feet high Kilimanjaro.

Born in S. Africa of English stock - his grandparents came out with the 1820 settlers - Harold had served with Nesbitt's Scouts in the Boer War in 1899, and then became a Treasury official in Johannesburg. He soon decided that life among the ledgers and vouchers was not the life for him. The Hills called their farm Katelembo after a species of lizard. One of Harold's first acts was to set a broody hen on 13 eggs. When he proudly took a visitor to see his initial farming enterprise, he found no hen or eggs, but a cobra coiled up in the nest. Harold shot the cobra, recovered the eggs intact from its insides, found the terrified hen and re-set her. It is typical of his lack of bombast that he never embroidered the story - the eggs didn't hatch. …… [more - ostrich farming]

Lions swarmed in those days. Up to 1918 Harold had been in at the death of 135, and Clifford of 160. Neither was a professional hunter. No wonder some of the first attempts at cattle ranching failed. After the Second World War a new start had to be made. Wheat was a failure owing to locusts and weeds. Harold planted oranges and coffee, and began to build up his cattle. Hunting no longer interested him. At the age of 75 he handed over Katelembo to his son Norman and 'retired' to a small piece of land, planting coffee and oranges and fencing it for cattle. He was still working full-time when he died in 1963 at the age of 82.

Agricultural Journal 1908 - Brands Allotted and Registered - June 1908 - C. and H. Hill, Kapiti Plains - Machakos BH

PercivalP - " Harold was pretty hot stuff too. He was in at the death of 136 lions over the years, before he gave up hunting. This sounds like a lot of lions, but a that time the early settler was fighting for his very survival. I have known lion to kill 83 ostriches in one night in a boma. ……….  But lions turned the tables on Harold one day when he was walking alone and unarmed between Wami and Theki and he suddenly discovered that two lions were following him. He realised that to run would be useless and would only invite trouble so he kept on at a steady pace and after a mile or two the lions disappeared. Harold told me later that his leather leggings were wet through with sweat, just about as beastly an experience as one would wish to avoid. What prompted the lions, one will never know. Curiosity? who can tell? Normally lions cannot hide fast enough if they see a white man. Perhaps it was their idea of a joke. Harold Hill was always welcome at any hunt for, apart from everything else, he was an extremely quick and accurate shot. He seldom failed to anchor a lion if he got half a chance. 

Harold appeared to be allergic to leopards, for he was twice mauled by a leopard, once on his own farm when he and Clifford were out together. The beast got him by the wrist, but luckily a shot had already broken his shoulder and Harold was able to hold him off though he clawed his ankles. Clifford tried to pull him off by the tail, and Harold - who had visions of Clifford and the leopard having a tug of war with himself in the middle - was relieved when the brute bolted. They were able to finish him off later. The second time he was mauled was when he was in the Masai Country buying cattle for the troops during the Kaiser's War. He was out trying to get a guinea fowl for the pot, when a leopard jumped him and seized him by the left arm. Luckily he lay still until the arrival of the boys from the camp scared off the leopard. ……….

Harold had a nightmarish journey after he had been mauled the second time, a journey of 5 days before he reached the railway at Kijabe. When he got there the doctor was away, so he had to go on to Nairobi by train. He did the first part of that 5 days journey to Kijabe on a mule, then in an oxcart and finally in a mule buggy. George Agget deserves most of the credit for getting Harold in, though Boyce Agget took him the last part in the mule buggy at a gallop. The rains were on which added greatly to the misery and discomfort of the journey. In addition, they only had a large veterinary syringe for the purpose of pumping potassium permanganate into the wound. Harold admits that the pain was excruciating; but who knows, perhaps this crude treatment saved not only his arm but his life as well. Once in Nairobi hospital, the arm was soaked in a warm saline bath and in 8 days Harold was out of danger, but it was touch and go. At the start the doctors admitted they had very little hope of saving the arm.

PercivalP - " The Hills were satisfied with the country as being suitable for ostriches and put in for 5,000 acres of land; I took up 5,000 acres adjoining them and Sir Alfred Pease had another 5,000 acres. Sir Alfred did try to farm, and took a partner, but lost money and sold out. I think the dear old gentleman was always moe interested in the game than in serious farming."

All Souls Cathedral, Machakos - Harold D. Hill, who died at his home in Machakos aged 82 years on 19 September 1963

Appreciation - Mr Harold D. Hill dies peacefully at his Machakos home last week at the age of 82. His independent and adventurous life started in Salem, Eastern Province, Cape Colony, in 1881, his grandparents having arrived in South Africa with the 1820 settlers. He served in Nesbett's Horse in the Boer War and was galloper to Colonel Wavell (father of Field Marshal Wavell). Arriving in British East Africa in 1905 and starting to farm at Limuru in 1905, he soon moved to Machakos where he lived until his death pioneering ostriches, oranges, wheat and coffee in the district. With his cousin Mr Clifford Hill, he was one of the first professional hunters and took Theodore Roosevelt on his East African safari. He was an enthusiastic sportsman, especially cricketer and played his last game for Machakos at the age of 74. His enthusiastic support and outspoken criticism was a tradition on the Machakos cricket and rugger fields until he died. Fiercely and utterly loyal to his friends, outspoken and independent with tremendous enthusiasm in all he did. Harold Hill was a wholly kind man and his death is a grievous loss to his family, to his friends and to Kenya - especially to Machakos District where many of us have so many happy memories of him. - R. O'B. W.

Red Book 1912 - H.D. Hill - Machakos

Obituary - East African Standard 11 March 1955, p.6

Gazette - 29/10/1919 - Register of Voters - Ukamba Area - Harold Dold Hill - Settler, Katelembo, Machakos and Florence Hill - Married Woman, Katelembo, Machakos

Joelson - First to grow wheat a couple of years before WW1

Gazette 28 July 1964 probate