History

Values

Facilities

Jobs

Reciprocating Clubs

Introduction

One hundred years is a milestone, in whatever context.

There are now no human survivors of the years before the First World War (1914 – 18) to offer personal reminiscences so we have relied on the written records that are available and contemporary writings. The description of events and characters that shaped the environment in which the Club began, grew and flourished in the 100 years since its foundation are part and parcel of the story.

The first written records available are the minutes of the 1906 Annual General Meeting held on 17th April. The early minutes, of Committees and Annual General Meetings, are written in longhand. Although some of the scribes wrote in copperplate style, the hands of others are not so easily decipherable. It all made for slow reading and it was a relief to progress to the 1920s when, it seems, the Club could afford its own typewriter. It is on the minutes, of Committees, Sub Committees, Annual General and Special Meetings, that we have relied to piece together the threads of the story. The Minutes faithfully chronicle events and are honest, if at times possibly naïve, record of prevailing cultures and attitudes. Sometimes long winded, at others terse and sparing with detail, they provide the main source of information on the Club’s progress and development.

For a historian, the difficulty is to focus on the main issue and avoid being sidetracked into interesting, but not especially relevant, sidings (we can not avoid the railway) while trying to present a fairly accurate version of events and personalities which lead to the present day. Inevitably, there are gaps; many valuable records were lost when the government secretariat, housed in an early Club building was gutted by fire in September 1939. However, much has remained to be studied, considered and indeed, enjoyed.
Because Club records are incomplete, there are many lacunae where one can only guess at the sequence, so this should not be described as a history but as the story of Nairobi Club based on fact and giving as accurate a version of the sequence of events leading to the present day as the limitations permit.
Major W.G (Gerry) Edwards, a cattle baron from Rumuruti, on being appointed president of the Club (an office today held by the senior member) in 1962 offered the following definition of a Club: ‘A Club is a home for those who have not got one and a refuge for those who have’.

Nairobi Club not only fulfilled that definition but has every reason to be immensely proud of its distinguished ‘not out’ century and the part it has played, and continues to play, in Nairobi’s growth and as a social and cultural centre of city life.