Elizabeth Watkins
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Elizabeth Watkins | |
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| Born | 24 June 1923 Oxford, United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Writer |
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June Knowles (24 June 1923 – 14 October 2012),[1] better known by her pen name Elizabeth Watkins, was an English author, brought up in Kenya, where her parents - Oscar Ferris Watkins (1877–1943) and Olga Florence Watkins (née Baillie Grohman) (1889–1947) - had started a coffee farm outside Nairobi, and later educated at St Anne's College, Oxford.
In 1941, aged just 18, she falsified her age in order to join up with the
Allied advance into Southern Italy
.
In 1949 she married Oliver Staniforth Knowles (1920–2008)[4] in Nairobi, they had met at Oxford University and moved to Kenya where he was in the Colonial Administration. They had four sons.
Watkins died on October 14, 2012, at the age of 89 at her home in Oxford, after a short illness.[3]
Books
- Jomo's Jailor - Grand Warrior of Kenya. with a foreword by ISBN 978-0-9528952-0-6.
- A Biography of 'Wouse' (Leslie Whitehouse) a colonial administrator and the District Commissioner in Turkana, Kenya in the mid-1950s at the time Jomo Kenyatta was interned by the British in Lokitaung and then Lodwar. Responsible for holding him safely in captivity, Whitehouse formed a friendship with Kenyatta which subsequently influenced Kenyatta's outlook and relationship with white Kenyans.
- Oscar from Africa - The Biography of Oscar Ferris Watkins 1877-1943. London: Radcliff press. 1995. ISBN 1-85043-948-6.
- The Biography of her father East African campaignin the First World War;
- Olga in Kenya - Repressing the Irrepressible. London: Pen Press. 2005. ISBN 1-905203-74-8.
- The biography of her mother, Olga Florence Watkins, daughter of Kenya Legislative Council, being elected to take the seat previously held by the murdered Lord Erroll. As the first director of Women's Education in Kenya she was a staunch advocate of rights and education facilities for African woman.
Autobiographical
- Cypher Officer - in Cairo, Kenya, Caserta (2008) Pen Press ISBN 978-1-906206-27-7.
- A first hand account of the author's own experiences in the RAF Cypher officer in the WAAFs, encoding and decoding cyphers in the field, by using the British version of the Enigma machine.
See also
- Carrier Corps
- Jomo Kenyatta
- History of Kenya
- Richard Meinertzhagen
- William Adolf Baillie Grohman- grandfather
- Emily Quihampton - great grandmother
- Oscar Ferris Watkins - father
References
- ^ "June Knowles". Writers in Oxford. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
- ^ Knowles, June (15 January 2002). "Interview for Imperial War Museum" (Interview).
- ^ a b "In memoriam: Elizabeth June Ferris Knowles (Watkins 1946) 24 June 1923-14 October 2012" (PDF). The Ship. No. 2012–2013. Oxford: St Anne's College. 2013. pp. 94–96. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 April 2016. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
- ^ "Obituary: Oliver Staniforth Knowles The Times, October 28 2008". The Times.
External links
- Elizabeth Watkins Kenya Books on Internet Archive
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