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Elspeth Josceline <I>Grant</I> Huxley

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Elspeth Josceline Grant Huxley

Birth
London, City of London, Greater London, England
Death
10 Jan 1997 (aged 89)
Tetbury, Cotswold District, Gloucestershire, England
Burial
Cremated Add to Map
Memorial ID
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Elspeth Josceline Grant was born to Major Josceline "Jos" Charles Henri Grant (born July 28, 1874) and Eleanor "Nellie" Lilian Rose Grosvenor (born in 1885) in London on July 23, 1907.

The couple married in London on July 26, 1906. Her parents moved the family to Thika, in colonial Kenya, when Elspeth was a young girl. Elspeth became one of the great authors about Africa, her semi-autobiographical novel The Flame Trees of Thika being her most famous work out of 42 books.

Jos' grandfather Sir Charles Grant had been governor of Bombay, while his father, also Sir Charles, rose in the Indian Civil Service to become Foreign Secretary of the Indian government. Jos' mother Elizabeth Ellen Baillie died in 1885 when he was 11. She was the daughter of Henry Baillie of Redcastle, Inverness-Shire. Jos died in Nakuru Hospital in Kenya on April 8, 1947, and was buried in the Nakuru cemetery.

Her mother Nellie was the sixth and youngest child of Lord Richard de Aquila Grosvenor who is later known as Lord Stalbridge. Her mother was his second wife, Eleanor Francis Beatrice Hamilton-Stubber, daughter of Robert Hamilton Stubber, JP and Deputy Lieutenant of Moyne in Northern Ireland. Nellie died on August 21, 1977, at the age of 92 in the British Hospital in Lisbon, Portugal. She was buried in Saint George Cemetery in Portugal as she had desired.

Elspeth married Gervas Huxley on December 12, 1931. They had a son, Charles Grant, born February 10, 1944. Born in 1894, Gervas died April 2, 1971, after suffering from poor health for some years. His funeral was held on April 16 at the Church of All Saints in Oaksey. a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, on the county boundary with Gloucestershire. His ashes were scattered by the roses in the front garden of their home called Green End.

Charles married Frederica Lispenard Huxley in 1968. Josceline "Jos" Grant Huxley was born February 15, 1972. In September 1973, Frederica gave birth to twins: Hugh and Alexander. The couple divorced in 1996. In 1997 Charles married Louise Garvey.

At the age of 89, Elspeth, who was suffering from liver cancer, died January 10, 1997, in a nursing home in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England. She was cremated at a private ceremony and a memorial service which she herself had planned at All Saints Church in Oaksey was held Saturday, March 8, 1997. Some flame tree blooms from Kenya were placed on the altar before the service.

At the ceremony three rousing hymns – "Lord of All Joyfulness, Lord of All Joy," "O Worship the King," and "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord" – were sung. Elspeth's son Charles read 1 Corinthians 13; her grandson Hugh read from Ecclesiastics chapters 11 and 12. His twin brother Alexander read a poem he had written for the occasion, "Traveler, To Where Do You Head?" Their elder brother Josceline read the poem "The Scribe" by Walter de la Mare.

After the service in a packed church, those who brought daffodils and irises in pots planted them in the orchard Elspeth had created at her home Green End, where her ashes had been strewn. A wake was held at Woodfolds in the village of Oaksey.

From biography Elspeth Huxley: A Biography by C. S. Nicholls, 2002, Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press.

Author, journalist, broadcaster, magistrate, environmentalist, farmer, and government adviser
On her death in 1997, Veronica Bellers (fellow OSPA member) wrote these words in tribute to her:
The former Colonial Service in Africa has lost a friend in Elspeth Huxley. Her honest observations on all aspects of the Administration, and her admiration for their contributions to the fabric of African life provide posterity with an invaluable record. Although in her most authoritative work White Man's Country she remarks that the Kenya settler resented "the tendrils of bureaucracy [which] groped for him even in the wilds", she stoutly defended the Kenya administration against charges by Margery Perham of not listening to African views. "A large part of their job is to find out native feelings and to support their interests", she admonished.

She took a keen interest in all aspects of government efforts "to improve the conditions of the people". In the field of education she recognised the "propellent quality that whirls forward . . . all in his path" of an Education Officer in Gambia whose dream was to see every Gambian child with book and pencil in its hand. And when she visited the "clean and spruce" hospital at Kakamega she was moved by the malnutrition block and a "tiny creature . . . [with] a puny wizened face . . . light as thistledown and its hair was white . . ." She noted that the patients came from one location where "although all the families own cows . . . the men drink [the milk], or make it into ghee to sell".

Mrs Huxley sympathised with the lonely policeman in Kitosh where "Arson is the principal amusement here" and who, when asked what he did in the evenings, said "Sometimes I watch bats chasing the rats out of the rafters". But it was agriculture which interested her the most and the Agricultural Officers struck her "as happy men . . . for they have a job they believe in unmixed with politics". A small village in Nigeria reeled under the ministrations "of a Welsh crusader who with all the fervour, eloquence and fanaticism of his race . . . " set about reforming cocoa and palm oil production and creating prosperous cooperatives.

Refreshingly unclouded by political correctness, Mrs Huxley's love of Africa and Africans gleams and twinkles through all her reportative writings. In Four Guineas she described one of the more ticklish problems facing an official: how to word an invitation to a Gambian dignitary with several wives. Should it be marked "Mr, and one Mrs Jahumpa", or "Mr and the Mrs Jahumpa, or in what manner?".

Credit/Source:
https://www.britishempire.co.uk/library/macielhuxley.htm

Six Quotes

1. Africa is cruel…it takes your heart and grinds it into powdered stone – and no-one minds.
2. The best way to find out things, if you come to think of it, is not to ask questions at all. If you fire off a question, it is like firing off a gun; bang it goes, and everything takes flight and runs for shelter. But if you sit quite still and pretend not to be looking, all the little facts will come and peck round your feet, situations will venture forth from thickets and intentions will creep out and sun themselves on a stone; and if you are very patient, you will see and understand a great deal more than a man with a gun.
3. The pioneer kills what he loves.
4.. You cannot sell a blemished apple in the supermarket, but you can sell a tasteless one provided it is shiny, smooth, even, uniform and bright.
5. To deceive gracefully is the very essence of social life. One must start by deceiving oneself, and make a lifelong practice of deceiving others; if one does it well enough, in time one might even become an artist, the greatest illusionists of all.
6. How much does one imagine, how much observe? One can no more separate those functions than divide light from air, or wetness from water.

Credit/Source:
https://www.writerswrite.co.za/literary-birthday-23-july-elspeth-huxley/
Elspeth Josceline Grant was born to Major Josceline "Jos" Charles Henri Grant (born July 28, 1874) and Eleanor "Nellie" Lilian Rose Grosvenor (born in 1885) in London on July 23, 1907.

The couple married in London on July 26, 1906. Her parents moved the family to Thika, in colonial Kenya, when Elspeth was a young girl. Elspeth became one of the great authors about Africa, her semi-autobiographical novel The Flame Trees of Thika being her most famous work out of 42 books.

Jos' grandfather Sir Charles Grant had been governor of Bombay, while his father, also Sir Charles, rose in the Indian Civil Service to become Foreign Secretary of the Indian government. Jos' mother Elizabeth Ellen Baillie died in 1885 when he was 11. She was the daughter of Henry Baillie of Redcastle, Inverness-Shire. Jos died in Nakuru Hospital in Kenya on April 8, 1947, and was buried in the Nakuru cemetery.

Her mother Nellie was the sixth and youngest child of Lord Richard de Aquila Grosvenor who is later known as Lord Stalbridge. Her mother was his second wife, Eleanor Francis Beatrice Hamilton-Stubber, daughter of Robert Hamilton Stubber, JP and Deputy Lieutenant of Moyne in Northern Ireland. Nellie died on August 21, 1977, at the age of 92 in the British Hospital in Lisbon, Portugal. She was buried in Saint George Cemetery in Portugal as she had desired.

Elspeth married Gervas Huxley on December 12, 1931. They had a son, Charles Grant, born February 10, 1944. Born in 1894, Gervas died April 2, 1971, after suffering from poor health for some years. His funeral was held on April 16 at the Church of All Saints in Oaksey. a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, on the county boundary with Gloucestershire. His ashes were scattered by the roses in the front garden of their home called Green End.

Charles married Frederica Lispenard Huxley in 1968. Josceline "Jos" Grant Huxley was born February 15, 1972. In September 1973, Frederica gave birth to twins: Hugh and Alexander. The couple divorced in 1996. In 1997 Charles married Louise Garvey.

At the age of 89, Elspeth, who was suffering from liver cancer, died January 10, 1997, in a nursing home in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England. She was cremated at a private ceremony and a memorial service which she herself had planned at All Saints Church in Oaksey was held Saturday, March 8, 1997. Some flame tree blooms from Kenya were placed on the altar before the service.

At the ceremony three rousing hymns – "Lord of All Joyfulness, Lord of All Joy," "O Worship the King," and "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord" – were sung. Elspeth's son Charles read 1 Corinthians 13; her grandson Hugh read from Ecclesiastics chapters 11 and 12. His twin brother Alexander read a poem he had written for the occasion, "Traveler, To Where Do You Head?" Their elder brother Josceline read the poem "The Scribe" by Walter de la Mare.

After the service in a packed church, those who brought daffodils and irises in pots planted them in the orchard Elspeth had created at her home Green End, where her ashes had been strewn. A wake was held at Woodfolds in the village of Oaksey.

From biography Elspeth Huxley: A Biography by C. S. Nicholls, 2002, Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press.

Author, journalist, broadcaster, magistrate, environmentalist, farmer, and government adviser
On her death in 1997, Veronica Bellers (fellow OSPA member) wrote these words in tribute to her:
The former Colonial Service in Africa has lost a friend in Elspeth Huxley. Her honest observations on all aspects of the Administration, and her admiration for their contributions to the fabric of African life provide posterity with an invaluable record. Although in her most authoritative work White Man's Country she remarks that the Kenya settler resented "the tendrils of bureaucracy [which] groped for him even in the wilds", she stoutly defended the Kenya administration against charges by Margery Perham of not listening to African views. "A large part of their job is to find out native feelings and to support their interests", she admonished.

She took a keen interest in all aspects of government efforts "to improve the conditions of the people". In the field of education she recognised the "propellent quality that whirls forward . . . all in his path" of an Education Officer in Gambia whose dream was to see every Gambian child with book and pencil in its hand. And when she visited the "clean and spruce" hospital at Kakamega she was moved by the malnutrition block and a "tiny creature . . . [with] a puny wizened face . . . light as thistledown and its hair was white . . ." She noted that the patients came from one location where "although all the families own cows . . . the men drink [the milk], or make it into ghee to sell".

Mrs Huxley sympathised with the lonely policeman in Kitosh where "Arson is the principal amusement here" and who, when asked what he did in the evenings, said "Sometimes I watch bats chasing the rats out of the rafters". But it was agriculture which interested her the most and the Agricultural Officers struck her "as happy men . . . for they have a job they believe in unmixed with politics". A small village in Nigeria reeled under the ministrations "of a Welsh crusader who with all the fervour, eloquence and fanaticism of his race . . . " set about reforming cocoa and palm oil production and creating prosperous cooperatives.

Refreshingly unclouded by political correctness, Mrs Huxley's love of Africa and Africans gleams and twinkles through all her reportative writings. In Four Guineas she described one of the more ticklish problems facing an official: how to word an invitation to a Gambian dignitary with several wives. Should it be marked "Mr, and one Mrs Jahumpa", or "Mr and the Mrs Jahumpa, or in what manner?".

Credit/Source:
https://www.britishempire.co.uk/library/macielhuxley.htm

Six Quotes

1. Africa is cruel…it takes your heart and grinds it into powdered stone – and no-one minds.
2. The best way to find out things, if you come to think of it, is not to ask questions at all. If you fire off a question, it is like firing off a gun; bang it goes, and everything takes flight and runs for shelter. But if you sit quite still and pretend not to be looking, all the little facts will come and peck round your feet, situations will venture forth from thickets and intentions will creep out and sun themselves on a stone; and if you are very patient, you will see and understand a great deal more than a man with a gun.
3. The pioneer kills what he loves.
4.. You cannot sell a blemished apple in the supermarket, but you can sell a tasteless one provided it is shiny, smooth, even, uniform and bright.
5. To deceive gracefully is the very essence of social life. One must start by deceiving oneself, and make a lifelong practice of deceiving others; if one does it well enough, in time one might even become an artist, the greatest illusionists of all.
6. How much does one imagine, how much observe? One can no more separate those functions than divide light from air, or wetness from water.

Credit/Source:
https://www.writerswrite.co.za/literary-birthday-23-july-elspeth-huxley/


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