The territory that is today known as Kenya was of little importance to Europeans during mid to late 19th century.
It was more of a passage to important places such as Ethiopia, Buganda and Kilimanjaro.
This changed after the Berlin Conference where a desire to stamp out slavery was one of the top agendas
As a result, the British thought the best option to suppress slavery once and for all in East Africa was to build a railway line to disrupt slave trade right at the source of slaves ie in the interior especially Uganda
However the British also had a hidden motive in building the railway. It was to ensure that they had a firm grip on Uganda which they considered to be too important to them.
British politicians were worried that the land surrounding the Nile may fall in the hands of British enemies, and this would affect Egypt.
Writing in the book The Lunatic Express, Charles Miller said: "Whatever power dominates Uganda masters the Nile, the masters of the Nile rules Egypt, the ruler of Egypt holds the Suez Canal."
In a nut shell, even though the British hid behind ending slavery, the railway was to be built for political and military reasons with regards to Uganda.
To start the work, in December 1890 The Imperial British East Africa Company asked the British Government to guarantee the interest on the capital required to construct the Railway, but this was declined.
Instead in 1895, the Government decided to build it themselves. After several reconnaisances and reports a route was selected about 650 miles long, from Mombasa to Port Victoria since it was much closer to Uganda. But this was changed to Port Florence now Kisumu.
Despite the construction of the railway gobbling £5,500,000, they railway was not bringing in any returns because it had no use. In other words it was uneconomical. Why? Because it had been built for the wrong reasons I.e. for political and military reasons rather than commercial reasons.
As a results Sir Elliott decided that the best way to make the railway profitable was to encourage white settlement in the areas through which the railway passed . He therefore wrote to the British government to inform it on the importance of encouraging European immediate migration.
Luckily for Charles Elliott, there was someone at hand to help. He was Hugh Cholmondeley, third Baron Delamere, a British aristocrat who was already bored with the life in England, and had fallen in love with Kenya after a hunting expedition.
He was on his trip from Ethiopia when he came across the beautiful highlands of Kenya and decided to settle. It was Elliott and Delamere who played a great role in establishing early white settlement. In 1913, a land bill was passed that gave the white settlers 999 year leases on the land.
So successful were the two in their scheme of in encouraging European farmers to move to Kenya, that in just 5 years the railway was already making profit.
On 11 June 1920 the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya was established.
Kenya & the British Interests
