Chief Koinange wa Mbiyu (left) and Fenner Brockway.
When I first set foot in the homestead of the Koinange family in Kiambaa, Kiambu County, accompanied by Cambridge historian John Lonsdale years ago, I was caught off-guard by a question from Elizabeth Gathoni, then surviving wife of chief Koinange wa Mbiyu. Pulling me aside, she asked: “Is that Fenner Brockway?”
Her question carried the weight of history. That a matriarch in Kenya would invoke the name of a British socialist and anti-colonial firebrand was remarkable – especially considering how little Brockway’s name features in Kenya’s political narratives. A tireless advocate for African liberation, Brockway was instrumental in championing decolonisation. He had also helped Koinange hire a Queen’s Counsel to represent his sons, who had been accused of being privy to Chief Waruhiu’s murder – a move that became the excuse to declare a state of emergency in Kenya. Finally, he attempted to have Koinange released from detention.
While reading Brockway’s autobiography Towards Tomorrow recently, I came across passages recounting his visit to Kenya – insights that deserve to be revisited. A committed socialist, Brockway was first introduced to Kenyan politics through the writings of Norman Leys and MacGregor Ross, figures who also played a role in shaping Jomo Kenyatta’s experience in London – and that of Koinange’s eldest son, Mbiyu.
The friendship between Brockway and senior chief Koinange was important, especially for a country where race and colour were used as a category of discrimination. More so, it was a friendship that challenged the racial hierarchies imposed by the colonial administration.
British politicians
Though long forgotten, Brockway was one of the few British politicians who openly championed African self-rule. His commitment to dismantling imperialist structures aligned with the aspirations of Koinange, and their friendship illustrated the possibility of cross-racial solidarity in the fight against colonial oppression.
It also revealed how pan-Africanists used British left wing politicians to amplify African voices in the Westminster, especially in lobbying for political reforms and expose colonial injustices to an international audience.
Thus, it was a friendship that represents an underexplored dimension of Kenya’s independence struggle – one that highlights how global solidarity played a role in undermining colonialism and fostering a vision of a more inclusive, post-colonial society.
During his first visit to Kenya, Brockway was a guest of the Kenya African Union (KAU), then under Kenyatta’s leadership. At the airport, he was met by two familiar faces from London: US-trained Mbiyu Koinange and Jomo Kenyatta, who had spent 15 years in London. Both were deeply engaged in building KAU as a symbol of pan-Africanism and a vehicle for liberation.
Brockway observed that Kenyatta had not changed since their days in London: “aquiline features, a cloak over his shoulders, the invariable ivory-topped stick in his hand (and) grinning radiantly.”
“My London friend, Mbiyu, who had raced me from England, laughed boisterously as he hugged me,” Brockway recalls in his book.
The three drove towards Kiambu, passing through the European suburb, European coffee plantations and into the African banana farms.
Chief Koinange lived in a blend of modernity and African tradition and Brockway described his home as a “picture-book bungalow, red brickwork, blue woodwork and a white door”.
On this day, he was dressed in a “pressed grey suit,” with five women by his side.
“I had been told, even by liberal visitors to Kenya, that I would not live with Africans,” Brockway wrote in his autobiography.
“I have never been more comfortable than in this Kiambu bungalow.”
The next day, news of Brockway’s presence spread across Nairobi. A journalist tracked him to Kiambu and confronted him: “Do you realise how shocked Europeans are that you are staying with natives? It is unprecedented for a British MP not to stay at Government House – today’s State House – or at least in a European hotel.”
To ease this outrage, Brockway made his first visit that morning to Government House. To his surprise, he discovered that books on Kenya by MacGregor Ross and Norman Leys – both critical of colonial injustices – were required reading for students entering colonial service. Ironically, these students went on to perpetuate the very injustices condemned in the books.
Koinange had been the first African to grow coffee, but colonial authorities had uprooted his plantation, enforcing a policy that reserved cash crop farming for Europeans. In place of his coffee trees, he was only allowed to grow bananas. His estate was so vast that the area later became known as Banana Hill.
At the time of Brockway’s visit, the Githunguri School – later seen by the colonial government as a breeding ground for revolutionary thought under Koinange and Kenyatta – was still under construction.
“I did not see a sign of this on my visits,” Brockway noted.
What he did witness, however, was the brutality of colonial rule. As he travelled through the countryside with Kenyatta, they came upon a site police had torched African huts, leaving only smouldering ruins.
“One armed officer was still on guard,” Brockway wrote, “who confirmed the story and added that police would return the following day to burn the crops.”
Brockway wrote a protest letter to the governor, who dismissed the destruction by claiming the peasants had trespassed. From that moment, Brockway resolved to play a role in the fight to liberate colonised spaces.
But an incident soon followed that revealed something intriguing about Kenyatta’s character. He wanted Brockway to see more of the African communities. He writes: “Kenyatta suggested that I take a break from my persistent companions and join him for a short, quiet drive. I agreed, expecting a brief escape. However, the drive turned into a long journey, and I became increasingly irritated. I wanted nothing more than to return to the Koinange bungalow and rest. Jomo kept reassuring me, yet despite my protests, the car went deeper into the countryside. Eventually, we drove through banana plantations and arrived at our destination – his home.”
“Outside, a group of girls greeted us, but Jomo hurried me inside for a drink. The house was like a granite fortress, its entrance hall bare and cold. By this point, I was in such a foul mood that I insisted on leaving immediately. As we departed, Jomo asked me to say a few words to the girls. I wished the African cause well, but they remained unresponsive, seemingly perplexed. I did not forgive Jomo for this diversion, but now I wonder whether his intention had been to help me relax in female company. That, after all, would have been in line with his reputation.”
Six-year detention
He then took Brockway to the Koinange family. That is why he played a major role in trying to rescue the Koinange children after they were accused of murder following the death of Chief Waruhiu wa Kung’u. Koinange hired a Queen’s Counsel.
Looked from that dimension, Elizabeth Gathoni’s question made sense since it was Brockway who also struggled to have the ailing chief Koinange released from a six-year detention after he was arrested following the state of emergency.
Brockway says that upon receiving a message that Koinange was suffering from an infirmity in old age, he tried to get Lennox-Boyd, at that time Colonial Secretary, to place the ex-senior chief under “house arrest” so that he could go home.
“After consulting the governor, he refused; the utmost concession I could get was permission for one of the wives to join him. Later came the news that he was seriously ill, and I persuaded Lennox-Boyd to allow his son Mbiyu, then in London, to visit him and raised the money for him to go. The old man got worse, and I begged the colonial secretary to allow him to return to his farm for his last days. Again refusal: then news came that he had been taken by plane and ambulance to the farm to die…(Koinange) loved people of all races, longed for their cooperation. I bowed my head on my next visit to Kenya two years later as I stood by his simple grave under a tree on the farm he loved.”
The friendship cultivated between chief Koinange and Brockway reveals a side of the Koinange that is little studied. As Elizabeth Gathoni told me, the gate in Koinange’s homestead was never locked. “It is open to everyone,” she said. And that explains the openness we found when we drove in.
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