One of the original '500' men in the Kenya Regt. in 1937. (KR 144). No place of birth noted.

Value - Foreword - ... some attention might also gratefully be directed to the memory of the late Sir James Kirkpatrick, Bt., who shot himself in April 1954 in Nairobi, and who was always a kind friend in what I believe to be the best and most dedicated public service I know, the Kenya Game Department.

East Africa & Rhodesia - 8/4/54 - Sir James Alexander Kirkpatrick, the 10th baronet, has been found dead in his home in Limuru, Kenya, with a gunshot wound in his head. An automatic pistol was discovered near the body, and foul play is not suspected. Born in 1918, and educated at Wellington, he succeeded to the title in 1937, and served with the RAFVR in the last war attaining the rank of squadron-leader. He joined the Kenya Game Department in 1939, becoming Acting Game Warden last year. He leaves a widow and two sons, of whom Ivonne Elliott Kirkpatrick is the heir.

Nairobi City Park cemetery - James Alexander Kirkpatrick, died 3 Apr 1954 aged 36

Chandler - A half-brother of Beryl Markham, Kirkpatrick hailed from Limuru. He was a hereditary baronet and a handsome, hard-drinking bon vivant. In the 1930s he ran the Kenya Game Department's main office in Nairobi under chief game warden Archie Ritchie. After serving with the RAF in WW2 Kirkpatrick rejoined the department, becoming assistant chief game warden under Willie Hale in 1949. In 1954 he was found shot to death at Limuru. Despite rumours of adulteries and tangled love affairs, and despite some suspicious circumstances, his death was ruled a suicide. Errol Trzebinski, probably the most meticulous researcher of this period, claims that Kirkpatrick died in a simple shooting accident while showing his wife how to handle a revolver.

Gavaghan - "A quite unexpected caller from Isiolo was Abdalla Farah. He eased himself unannounced into my new stone office, the walls already lined with shelves full of the Laws of Kenya and subsidiary legislation, portending my compulsory law exam as First Class Magistrate. He cut an imposingly bulky figure in a voluminous cotton robe, which appeared to sweep along without benefit of legs, somewhat as a Victorian lady negotiating stairs in a bustle, or a Cardinal at the altar.

'Have a fag', he said smoothly, proferring a silver case which appeared from inside his robe. From then on over many years we had an amiable relationship as our paths crossed. His father, Colonel Kirkpatrick of the King's African Rifles, had married a northern Somali woman in the Moslem rite with whom he had a son. The Colonel inherited a baronetcy. When he retired to Britain, leaving Abdalla and his mother behind in Africa, he married again according to the Christian rite and had another son christened James. On Colonel Kirkpatrick's death succession to the Baronetcy lay between the Moslem Somali and the British Christian son. It was determined through a substantial settlement, in favour of the latter as being of the Protestant faith, according to which, it was represented, the Baronetcy had first been granted by a Christian ruler. Sir James Kirkpatrick Bt., the younger son, became a Game Warden in Kenya and sadly committed suicide. Haji Abdallah Farah (so entitled after pilgrimage to Mecca), became a prominent merchant in Isiolo, known with ironical respect as 'the bastard Baronet'.