View entry
Name: DAWSON, William George
Nee: bro of William John Dawson
Birth Date: 1885 London
Death Date: 1972 Nakuru
First Date: 1919
Last Date: 1965
Profession: One of the BEADOC men who attempted to farm coffee at Kericho after WW1. A failure. Later a coffee farmer at Sotik and the first to plant tea there in 1935
Area: Kericho, Sotik, Kimore Kaptule Keritor
Married: 15 Sep 1931 Sylvia Mary Broadbent b. 19 Feb 1898 Marylebone, d. 10 Apr 1987 Hitchin
Children: Richard William (1932?); Rosemary Katherine (Caldwell) (1936); Edward 'Teddy'
Book Reference: Midday Sun, EAWL, Red 22, Hut, KAD, Red 31
War Service: WW1 with London Scottish - wounded, awarded MC
School: Mayfield College
General Information:
Midday Sun - 'In 1915 William Dawson had been blown up by a shell and sustained such terrible head wounds that he spent 3 years in hospital and suffered one operation after another. He had other injuries as well. After Beadoc's failure he managed to get a job on the railway supervising the building of bridges, saved a few pennies, went into partnership with another Beadoc man who had only one leg, and bought some undeveloped land in the Sotik district. Here they planted coffee which did not thrive, so they scrapped it and replaced it with tea, which did. William Dawson married, bit by bit enlarged his operations, raised a family and prospered in a modest way. ....... Shortly before Kenya's independence they were bought out by the Government for just enough to enable them to buy a cottage in an English village (in Gloucestershire).
EAWL Source: Norman Yonge
Hut has William Dawson married to Sylvia, arrived 1919, BEADOC Kericho then Sotik, partner of Yonge - he died 1929
Hut also has Capt. W.J. Dawson, brother of William G.?, 1923 Kimore, Kaptule, Keritor, Kapkemoro - wounded WW1 metal plate in head, 2s 1d - Richard, Teddy, Rosemary, 1914-16 West Yorkshire Regt.
Gazette - 20/7/1921 - Register of Voters - Lake Area - William George Dawson - Settler - Kericho