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Name: RICHARDS, Charles Granston OBE

Birth Date: 17 Dec 1908 Tunbridge Wells

Death Date: 2001 Clayton, West Sussex ?1996

First Date: 1935

Last Date: 1963

Profession: Went to Nairobi as a member of the CMS to develop book distribution among Africans through the CMS bookshop. He himself wrote several books in Swahili. In 1948 he opened the EA Literature Bureau

Area: Nairobi

Married: In Essex 1939 Elizabeth Mary Matheson b. 1910, d. 1994 (she worked at Limuru Girls' School and Kenya High School)

Children: Stephanie Granston (Spaulding) (23 May 1941 Nairobi-23 Feb 2015 Pittsburgh, Penn.); Janet Elizabeth Granston (Lewison) (1943-29 Nov 2017 Richmond, Surrey); Philippa

Author: Janet Lewison, An African Childhood

Book Reference: Midday Sun, Jambo 1/94, Hut, Nicholls, Foster

School: Privately

General Information:

Midday Sun - 'Charles Richards remained director of the EA Literature Bureau for 15 years (1948-63) and built up a most impressive enterprise, including a library service whose 'book boxes' were delivered to bush schools from the border with Sudan to that of Zambia and fed from up-to-date central libraries. He set out to train his staff in all aspects of book production and distribution, so that when he left in 1963 the whole Bureau, from his successor downwards, was staffed by Africans.'

In 1911 Census he was a patient in The Ear And Eye Hospital, Tunbridge Wells

1939 England and Wales Register living in Sevenoaks, Kent

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