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Name: PURCHASE, Harvey Spurgeon OBE, Dr.
Birth Date: 20 Oct 1906 Chipata, Eastern Zambia
Death Date: 5 June 1968 Johannesburg
First Date: 1938
Profession: Veterinary Research Officer, Veterinary Dept., Kenya in 1939, appointed 1938. Transferred from N. Rhodesia
Area: Kabete
Married: Vera Margaret Cooper b. 28 Apr 1907 Edmonton, Middlesex, d. 15 Mar [?30 Apr] 1988 Sandy Spring, Montgomery, Maryland
Children: Harvey Graham (8 Aug 1936 Livingstone, Zambia-12 Mar 2010 Cary, Wake, N. Carolina); Iain Francis Harvey (9 Dec 1937 Livingstone-8 June 2016 Manchester)
Book Reference: Staff 39, Hut, Colonial
School: Mill Hill School and London University and Royal Vety. Coll; BSc., PHD, FRCVS
General Information:
Web - in 1931, Harvey returned to Northern Rhodesia as a Government Veterinary Officer, the first Rhodesia-born veterinarian to hold such a post. They were diseases with typical symptoms like Foot and Mouth with its lameness, Pleuropheumonia with its coughing, and Rinderpest with its diarrhoea. When he went to diagnose and control a disease, he traveled on foot with up to 30 Africans with packs on their heads. Harvey was an outstanding shot with the gun, and used it to provide meat for his crew. He knew the languages of the natives and respected them, and knew the countryside well. After his wedding to Vera Margaret Cooper, they took a ship to Cape Town and traveled by train to Barotseland, near Rhodesia where they lived in the bush under primitive conditions, as an employee of the British Colonial Service. While visiting in England, when World War II broke out, Harvey was transferred to Kenya, where he became a Veterinary Research Officer at the Veterinary Research Laboratory at Kabete, Kenya. He
became the CVRO [Chief Veterinary Research Officer] at Kabete. In 1952 he took early retirement from the Colonial Service and joined Cooper and Nephews, South Africa as their Technical Manager, joining the Board of Directors. Dr. Purchase's wide knowledge and experience of both field and research work against the broad background of African conditions made his services invaluable, not only to his South African Company but also to other African Cooper companies and the whole group of Cooper and Welcome Companies throughout the world. They lived in Rosebank, a northern suburb of Johannesburg, S. Africa where he eventually retired."