The Africa House by Christina Lamb

This book, ostensibly about a house at Shiwa Ngandu in Zambia, is really the story of the man who built the house, Stewart Gore Browne.

Stewart Gore Browne was an English nobleman who visited what was then Northern Rhodesia shortly before the First World War and fell in love with an area around Lake Shiwa Ngandu (Lake of the Royal Crocodile).

Following his service in WWI, Stewart Gore Browne returned to Northern Rhodesia in 1920 and set about constructing his own version of an English country estate in the midst of what was then a relatively unsettled portion of Africa. Gore Browne set about employing large numbers of the local populace and built from scratch much of what was needed to construct his ideal mansion. This including setting up a wood shop and training locals in wood working, setting up various agricultural operations, creating his own roof tile kilns, and so on.

The house project is quite interesting but the extraordinary portion of the book is the portrait of Stewart Gore Browne. He started as a purely Victorian colonial throwback and was called Chipembere (meaning rhinoceros) by the local people he employed. He thought himself utterly superior to the backwards Africans and believed it was quite proper to use violence to motivate his workers.

He insisted on rigid, outdated manners at all times. He sat down to formal dinners every night with African servants wearing uniforms complete with white gloves to serve him. He dressed impeccably and actually regularly wore a monocle. For much of his early life at Shiwa Ngandu he strolled about his estate alternating between Great White Hunter of the various game and harsh overseer of his African plantation.

Equally weird, he spent most of his life wrapped up with an apparently unrequited love for his aunt, Ethel Locke King, with whom he corresponded frequently (maybe weekly?) even while he was in Northern Rhodesia and she in England. Yet that wasn't the weirdest part of his personal life. Prior to his first visit to Northern Rhodesia, Stewart Browne courted, for almost three years, a woman named Lorna Bosworth Smith. However, when he had the chance to propose marriage he hesitated and she married another man she did not particularly care for. Stewart Browne spent his life mourning this failure to propose marriage. However, he availed himself of a weird second chance of sorts. At Lorna's funeral, he met Lorna's daughter, Lorna Goldmann. He fell for her just as he did her mother but this time marries her despite the fact that there is a 25 year age difference between the two of them. Because you can't make this stuff up, the two of them had a daughter and name her Lorna also.

All of this would make for an odd and mostly disturbing story except it doesn't end there for Gore Browne. As he continued to build and expand his estate and agricultural pursuits, Gore Browne become ever more enmeshed in the local Bemba people. The Bemba treated him almost as a chief and as Northern Rhodesia slowly developed, especially after the Second World War, Gore Browne increasingly acted on behalf of the Bemba people and the Africans themselves. He set up schools and hospitals, made a point of employing as many people as he could and eventually got involved in politics.

Once in politics, he become involved in fighting racial views that were coalescing into governing rules like apartheid in nearby South Africa and generally becomes a staunch advocate for de-colonialism and self governance by the Africans. As Northern Rhodesia gained independence and becomes Zambia, Gore Browne was the first major white political figure to openly ally with the majority African party. The first president of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda, was a friend and mentee of Gore Browne.

In addition to his political role, Gore Browne created a vibrant and long lasting friendship with his Bembe driver, Henry, to the point that that Gore Browne made arrangements for his friend to be buried beside him after his death.

Gore Browne died in 1967. He was buried at Shiwa Ngandu as a chief of the Bemba people. He was also afforded the only Zambian state funeral for a white man in that nation's history. President Kauda spoke at Gore Browne's funeral.

The house, after a long period of disrepair, is still there and has been restored. http://www.shiwangandu.com/ After reading the extraordinary story of Stewart Gore Browne, it is very high on my list of places that I would like to visit. ( )

A marvelous true story of an unexpected enterprise. The details of this life in Kenya are interesting. The writing is good. Well worth a read. ( )

I bought this book because I spent the first fourteen years of my life in Zambia (Northern Rhodesia as it was then), and Stewart Gore Browne was a friend of my father's. As a small girl I visited Shiwa when Dad was up in that area surveying land for a client who wanted to build an hotel on the edge of the lake. The one thing I remember about him was that he was a very eccentric man who had an artificial leg. I can't say I enjoyed the book very much, there were one or two factual errors which put me off, and the author seemed to have very preconceived ideas of what life in that country was like. Even so, very little is written about that part of Africa so almost anything is better than nothing. ( )

Zambia Agriculture