Trucks in Nyahururu Central Business District.
There was a time when Kenya exported pencils, with the National Pencil Company in Nyahururu serving as a key manufacturer before its collapse in 1980s — yet another industry undone by cheap imports and bad manners.
Had the pencil enterprise thrived, pundits agree, Nyahururu might have emerged as Africa’s answer to Tennessee’s Musgrave Pencil Company, which turned its hometown into "Pencil City." Instead, the industry's collapse marked yet another missed opportunity for Kenyan manufacturing.
Little has been written about this pencil enterprise, despite extensive coverage of its paper counterpart, the collapsed Pan-Paper Mills in Webuye, which was established around the same time as the National Pencil Company.
The collapse of a company that once held a monopoly on the pencil market in East Africa is emblematic of the broader story of Kenyan parastatals—wastage and inept management. Not that there was no pencil market. Nay. The market existed in all lower primary schools where until the 1980s, these pencils were supplied by the Nyahururu-based factory through the Kenya School Equipment Scheme.
Complex colonial history
But the story of the Kenya pencil runs deeper than that, rooted in a complex colonial history. For more than five decades, starting in 1920, Kenya was globally recognised for its fine cedar wood, mutarakwa, which had been identified as one of the best alternatives to American and Bavarian cedar supplies, both of which were nearing exhaustion. Yet, despite this advantage, Kenya never fully capitalised on cedar as a potential export after independence.
The tale of cedar, in some way, echoes that of bixa — a once-thriving cash crop in Kwale and Kilifi. At its peak, a state-run factory processed this prized plant used in the lipstick industry, until the inevitable happened: privatisation swept in, and the enterprise was handed over to the well-connected State House operative, Joshua Kulei.
When Kenya’s cedar potential was discovered, the Conservator of Forests enacted a policy granting rebates on all exports of pencil cedar, a measure designed to incentivize the trade and exploit of this prized resource. The rebate was to run from 1922 until 1925. By then, The Glasgow Herald was challenging the British Empire to enter the trade arguing that Bavaria alone was exporting a staggering 450 million pencils annually. The pencil was to be used by the British Empire to assert its economic independence. The newspaper triumphantly declared: "Today our dependence on foreign supplies can gradually cease, for in the Kenya Colony, we have cedar wood enough for a century."
This assertion of self-sufficiency was underscored by another resolute statement: "A wholly British pencil can now be made up from Kenya cedar wood, graphite mined in Canada and Ceylon [now Burma]... English must be written with a British pencil."
Such fervent imperial optimism—tinged with nationalist sentiment—became the driving force behind the exploitation of mutarakwa to make pencil slates. Various entrepreneurs set base within Kenya’s forest where they established sawmills to feed the world with pencil slates as the American woods started to diminish.
In 1924, the then Trade Commissioner remarked that mutarakwa, as the Kikuyu called the tree, "will make an excellent substitute for the American pencil cedar now in use, and which is reported to be rapidly disappearing."
Genuine pencil cedar
By the aftermath of World War II, it had become evident that the Americans had depleted their cedar reserves. In fact, a news report filed from Nairobi—widely circulated across various newspapers — boldly declared that Kenya was now “the only remaining source of genuine pencil cedar. Originally, all the best slats were crafted from an American tree of the Juniper group, but supplies of this wood are now exhausted.”
In February 1926, the exploitation of mutarakwa reached the hallowed chambers of the UK House of Commons, where it was revealed that the "Stationery Office are testing samples of East African wood, and the steps to be taken for securing a more uniform standard of quality in the slats sent to this country are now under consideration of the Government of Kenya."
At the time, a vast and unspoiled forest of African pencil cedar blanketed the lower slopes of the Kikuyu Escarpment, the Mau Forest and slopes of Aberdares standing as a silent testament to Kenya’s untapped potential in the global pencil industry.
As English pencil manufacturers turned their gaze toward Kenya’s lush cedar forests, whispers of trepidation rippled through the industry. The source of this unease? A report that the illustrious Berolzheimer family—revered across the globe as the undisputed monarchs of the pencil trade—had secured ownership of the pristine Little St. Simon’s Island, a secluded gem off the coast of Georgia, with its treasure trove of virgin red cedar.
But fate had other designs. The coveted red cedar, once believed to be an artisan’s dream, revealed itself to be woefully unsuited for the craft. The Berolzheimers, unshaken by this twist, did not relinquish their island domain. Instead, they transformed it into an opulent sanctuary, a retreat where New York’s elite could escape the din of urban life.
Thus Kenya cedar pencil slats hit the market with a bang. The prized mutarakwa soared in prestige, earning a place of honour alongside the venerable mahogany in the coveted exports. In 1941 newspapers were already reporting how new deliveries from Kenya “are enabling Great Britain to ship more pencils overseas than she did before the war.”
The lion’s share of these shipments found their way to South Africa, where the demand was insatiable. Prices were so lucrative that, in a scathing September 1948 article titled “Cedar Trees to Pencil,” journalist Angela Christopher lamented the grim fate of countless tons of cedar, unceremoniously consumed in the fireboxes of Kenya-Uganda Railway’s steam engines. “Though it is difficult to imagine what else they could have used for fuel,” she mused, “it is a tragic exercise to reckon how many thousands of pounds’ worth of valuable exports simply vanished into steam.”
As with all colonial enterprises, the British imperialists remained steadfast in their doctrine of raw material extraction, ensuring that Kenya’s bounty enriched foreign industries while local manufacturing was deliberately stifled. Thus, despite the country’s abundant cedar, no pencil factories arose on its soil—only mills dedicated to the meticulous crafting of pencil slats, destined for distant markets.
By 1950, a formidable pencil slat mill stood deep within the Nyandarua Forest, a thriving operation until the spectre of the Mau Mau uprising brought it to an abrupt halt. In its wake, the site later evolved into Shah and Patel Industries Limited. Meanwhile, Walter Jimmy Beeston’s Njoro Timber Mills carved its fortune from the vast Mau Forest, churning out pencil slats for the empire’s unquenchable appetite. Another key player, South African entrepreneur Bobby Ball, commanded a separate pencil slat factory from Burnt Forest, his enterprise feeding into the colonial supply chain.
Across the Indian Ocean, the demand for Kenya’s cedar knew no bounds. By 1950, India’s burgeoning pencil industry leaned heavily on the country’s prized mutarakwa slats, a testament to their unrivalled quality and global appeal.
National Pencil Company
It was after independence that Kenya sought to build its own pencil factory. After all it had a steady supply of pencil sluts and granite had also been discovered. The negotiations with investors were done by Dr Julius Gikonyo Kiano and his Commerce and Industry successor, Mwai Kibaki after the Matu Wamae-led Industrial and Commercial Development Corporation carried out feasibility studies. It was not clear why the negotiations took so long. The delay, according to Kabingu Muregi, was that the Ministry was “relying on some Asians called Shah and Patel. The other day, Shah and Patel said that if they were not going to be allowed to move their factory to Naivasha, they were not going to participate in this industry,” he claimed in Parliament. But in 1975, the Industrial Commercial and Development Corporation announced that it had invested Sh30 million in a new National Pencil Company.
The factory produced the Diamond brand pencils and crayons for primary schools. This was the first of its kind in Africa and was producing 40,000 pencils daily. With the discovery of graphite, it was hoped that Pencil Company would improve its performance. ICDC also wanted to have a stake in the graphite industry in order to shield the pencil company.
So what happened? In 1988, the pencil factory was reported closing operations at Nyahururu after massive importation of pencils into the country. Unable to compete with these imports, the National Pencil Company was left to its fate. Today, those who knew of this enterprise share stories of a giant that died. And with it, the value addition of cedar as a cash crop also withered. It is the sad story of Kenya.
John Kamau is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Toronto, Canada.
Email: [email protected] ; On X: @johnkamau1
