Custodian of Enemy Property

In 1915 Arning came across a tomb in the steppe below Ngare-Nairobi at the southwestern foot of Kilimanjaro, which was revealed when a military trench was dug. This site is probable the same as that from which Landgrebe, a farmer living close by, collected quite a small museum of stone bowls and perforated stone rings between 1925 and 1935.

.... After Landgrebe's internment in 1939 I [Gillman] made every effort to secure his collections, which filled a large show-case in his dwelling house, for the Dar-es-Salaam museum, but unfortunately the Custodian of Enemy Property could find no trace of them.

Siedentopf's Munge farm was purchased after the War (WWI) from the Custodian of Enemy Property by Sir Charles Ross, who undertook no development, and did not enforce his rights.

[J.A.Hunter] a young Scotsman, camped in Ngorongoro Crater, as a guide and professional Hunter to two American clients. Whilst in the Crater, Hunter paid a visit to a dilapidated farmhouse on the hillwash of the Crater wall, between the wall itself and the Lerai Forest, and almost directly below the site of the present Crater and Wildlife lodges which stand on the Crater rim.

The neglected farm contained little but a pack of equally neglected Australian Kangaroo hounds. Their master, Captain G.H.R. (George) Hurst, had moved into Ngorongoro as a rancher soon after the First World War, hoping to persuade the Custodian of Enemy Property to let him buy a farm on the far side of the Crater, appropriated from its German owner.

His dream of living out his life in that wild and glorious arena was brought to a very tragic end, for his application for legal ownership was turned down on favour of Sir Charles Ross. Hurst, perhaps to alleviate his disappointment, set off on a hunting safari and was killed by an elephant, on the Tanganyika coast.

Grandfather Ray Ulyate was to leave Elmenteita in Kenya in 1923 for Arusha with his young family. He was to purchase a Custodian of Enemy Property coffee farm, Meru Estate outside of Arusha at Lake Duluti. During the (1939-45) war a part of the farm was to become a Polish refugee camp [Tengeru?]. Today the farm is the Headquarters of the Tanzania Department of National Parks and Wild Life

Grandfather Ray was to farm at Meru Estate until 1928 when the coffee market prices and world recession made it virtually impossible for him to carry on farming.

The first European settlers to arrive were Germans, in the mid-1800's. After World War I Tanganyika became a British Protectorate. Early in the 1930's a coffee farm was established by a German farmer, subsidised by the German Government. During the Second World War, the British Custodian of Enemy Property took over the farm. It was sold in 1948 to James Gibb, a British war veteran, who returned the neglected coffee farm to production. He married Margaret in 1959. Margaret Gibb was born in Tanzania to British parents, she started a small vegetable and flower garden. In 1960 the Ngorongoro Conservation Area was established adjacent to and north of Gibb's Farm.

Ngorongoro was of course well known to the Germans prior to World War I, and to British officials, farmers and hunters in the early twenties. But the land through which the road runs from the top of the rift to the Crater was then uninhabited. In the mid-twenties German nationals were permitted to return to their previous colony, then a Mandate, but the previously German farms had been sold by the Custodian of Enemy Property, so that the returning Germans had to find somewhere new to live. Who the originator of the idea was will never be known, but a number of these people settled on the lower slopes of Oldeani and started carving out coffee farms for themselves.

One effect of this move was to encourage the Iraqw people to move up from their overcrowded country to the south, first as labourers on the farms, and then as settlers in their own right on the neighbouring uninhabited land. A specially appointed Land Commissioner, Mr Bageshaw, recommended - and the recommendation was accepted - that all the land lying to the south of the boundary of the Northern Highlands Forest Reserve, already demarcated by the German Government, should with the exception of the alienated farms, be developed as an expansion area for the Iraqw tribe. There were however three major deterrents to settlement; firstly the tsetse fly which prevented the keeping of cattle, then the lack of water, and finally the fear of Masai raids from Ngorongoro. But the tribal authorities, with the aid and advice of British officers, organised extensive self-help schemes whereby the empty lands were settled, slowly at first, but with increased impetus in the period following World War II.

When I first travelled along that road in 1934 there was not a sign of habitation from Mto-wa-Mbu to Karatu, whilst the big triangle of superb land lying between the rift and the forest edge, called Mbulumbulu, was entirely empty. With Government aid and encouragement the Iraqw folk were just beginning to trickle north, when World War II broke out. This involved the removal of German settlers to camps, but at the same time increased the need for self-sufficiency. The Oldeani-Karatu-Mbulumbulu area had proved itself particularly suitable for the production of wheat, and attracted the attention of the Custodian of Enemy Property (who was running the vacated farms in the interests of the Government), the non-German farmers in the area, and a specially organised official Wheat Scheme. In addition to encouraging production within the boundaries of the existing farms, the Government of the day permitted all these agencies to clear and plough on the land allocated by the Bageshawe Commission to the Iraqw people, on short term lease, the agreement being that the land should be handed back at the end of the war.

In spite of the pleas of those in occupation to retain the land, the Government honoured its pledge to the Iraqw people and put the land at their disposal. The result was that one had a number of wheat growers, with know-how and machinery at their disposal, but no land and a large number of Iraqw folk with a large area of ready cleared wheat land awaiting cultivation, but lacking machinery and know-how. Common interests brought the two parties together, the wheat growers working the land for the Iraqw and sharing the profits.

Arusha was like a tonic. Warm days, cool nights and living in an hotel, the New Arusha Hotel, where the meals were excellent and ridiculously cheap at shs. 3. 00 per day for breakfast. lunch, tea and dinner! The propietor's good deed towards the 'War Effort'. He also made available for our use (the 7 BNCOs), a large empty room which accommodated all our campbeds and kit. The Army paid for that. Bar sales shot up, no doubt off-setting the cheap meals? At this point another Sgt joined us from the Service Corps, a mechanic, who could carry on where I left off. The 'heap' I drove for 150 miles did, in fact, have a cracked cylinder-head. And the mystery of the missing Transport Officer; he was abandoned in Dodoma suffering from an attack of malaria!

I must digress for a while. Practically all the German nationals in the Territory were collected from here, there and everywhere as soon as war was declared. The number probably totaling 3,000 plus but where they were all interned prior to their evacuation to South Africa I cannot recollect. Their homes, estates, businesses etc, had to be abandoned and were left in the care of a newly formed Department, The Custodian of Enemy Property, thus creating plenty of employment for the older generation. Chaos reigned for a while but gradually sanity was restored. One shining example was in Arusha. The Ford Motor Co's agent was a German firm stocking a vast amount of spare parts dating from the present day back to 1930. With their German masters gone the Asian clerks were a little out of their depth when it came to searching for individual vehicle parts, consequently, one invariably had to go behind the counter, into the parts department, to find the necessary spare part(s) required.

I haven�t mentioned my brother for some considerable time! A month or two before hostilities commenced he went on six months leave to the UK and was therefore 'trapped', not knowing when he would be returning due to the unpredictable state of the shipping movements.

Back to Arusha. The township is situated on the lower slopes of an extinct volcano, Mt. Meru, which is 14,000 plus feet above sea level at the peak. In the European sector are well kept gardens with a profusion of flowers, and a whole variety of vegetables in the kitchen gardens . Plenty of beer in the two hotels. There was also a Chemists shop, most unusual in 'up-country' towns.

Lovely site! Well done indeed. My grandfather, A.G. de Villiers (known far and wide as DV), was an officer in the Tanganyika Territory Police and spent time in Northern Tanganyika.

Can you help me with some info.?

I am researching the life and times of Cyril Redfearn. He settled and commenced farming in Tanganyika Territory between c. 1922-24, being listed in the 1925 edition of the 'East African Red Book' as a planter at Moshi.

Thereafter he moved to 'Arusha' - probably Mbulu (he is listed as a resident of Arusha in the 1931 edition of the 'East African Red Book'.)

After War broke out he was appointed by the Custodian of Enemy Property, Tanganyika Territory, to manage the Oldeani Estates. (He was created an MBE in the New Year's Honours of 1945 for this work.)

After the war he continued farming for his own account at Mbulu, and was elected as a committee member of the Mbulu Farmers" Association in 1950 (see 'East Africa and Rhodesia' (24 August 1950), p. 1557.) At some stage thereafter (when?) he retired to live in Kenya - being listed in the Kenya Telephone Directory for July 1961 as a resident at Hema Estate in Kabete near Nairobi.

I don't know when he died.

Could you possibly help flesh out this story a little ?

Many thanks indeed

William de Villiers

Because of the Government's lack of resources and unwillingness to take a strong initiative in educational provision, and in pursuance of the G.I.A. policy, there grew up three racially distinct systems of African, Asian and European education with each of the three; subdivided into state controlled, state aided, and wholly private schools.

In the African sector for example in 1937, there were 9,500 pupils in Government schools, 19,500 in aided schools and 100,000 in private schools. These latter. were often sub-standard bush schools, catechetical centres or Koranic schools along the coast. It was not until 1955 that the Government required these kinds of schools to be registered.

In the same year, there were 985 places in Government schools for Indian children and another 3,318 in grant aided schools. The Indian community were quick to take advantage of the G.I.A. system and fulfil the requirements thus only 320 of their children were that year in private schools.

For the European community in the 1930s, the Government made direct provision in three ways. Arusha School, primarily for boarders, opened in 1934; a correspondence course was based in Dar es Salaam; and there was also a junior primary school in Dar es Salaam. The enrolment figures in 1937 show 59 children in the two latter, and 60 pupils at Arusha School.

There were in addition 704 grant aided places for European children, a significant proportion of these being in national community schools for the Dutch, German and Greek children. Another 15 places were in a private school. The above figures are taken from the enrolment statistics 1931 - 1948 in Appendix G.

There is another way of looking at these statistics and that is to see the percentage of children being- educated from each community. Listowell states that in 1933, 51% of the European children, 49% of the Asian and 2% of the African were at school.

By 1945 7.5%, of the African children attended school though few got beyond the fourth primary grade and none could attempt the entrance exam for tertiary study at Makerere in Uganda. By 1959, 40% of African children attended at least the first four years of primary education, and in 1961, 55% of the age group entered the first primary grade. The present Government of Nyerere aims at universal primary education by 1980. (The comparative cost per head of population has been referred to above and is detailed in Appendix J.)

In 1930 an Education Tax was introduced with the primary object of affording security to the Government for the repayment of loans made -to non-African communities. In 1932 the Indian and European communities were taxed for their education on a poll Tax basis and, in addition, fees were charged at their schools. Nevertheless the Government was making a far more generous per capita provision for European and Indian children than it was for African children. The table in Appendix J shows the total expenditure for each community and the per capita cost from 1931 - 1937. Also the table in Appendix K shows that in 1955/56, 33.7% of the money spent by the Government on European education was collected in fees, 15.4% came from -the European Education Tax and 49.1% from Central Revenue. In 1959. the central revenue provided for European Education an amount equivalent to 1% of the total territorial expenditure.

In 1956, "3,618,555 held by the Custodian of Enemy Property from funds collected from confiscated properties during the Second World Wart was distributed equally between the Tanganyika Higher Education Trust Fund for establishing tertiary education facilities, St Michael's and St George's School, a lavish secondary school for European children at Iringa, Indian education, and African education. This 4 way split seem superficially fair but as President Nyerere has pointed out, the allocation on a per capita basis was equivalent to shs- 720/- to each European, shs. 200/- to each Asian and shs. 2/- to each African.

A 1948 and 1949, the three existing education systems described above were formalized by two ordinances, the Non-Native Education Ordinance and the Non-Native Education Tax Ordinance. This legislation brought into being an Indian Education Authority and a European Education Authority, each composed of representatives of the communities they were to serve. They were responsible for the development and general over-sight of the systems, and for managing the education funds according to the budget approved by the Legislative Council. There was also an Advisory Committee for Other (non-native) Education, which included Goan, Mauritian, Seychellois, Anglo-Indian, and Ceylonese children.

What began in 1948 as a very minor offshoot of basic Government responsibility for the development of the country with only 8,000 Asian and 300 European children, had become by 1961 a major concern catering for 28,000 Asian and 2,500 European children.