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{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| honorific_prefix = [[The Honourable]]
| name = Oscar Ferris Watkins
| caption =
| image =
| birth_date = {{birth date|1877|12|23|df=yes}}
| birth_name = Oscar Ferris Watkins
| birth_place = [[Allahabad]], [[Uttar Pradesh]], [[India]]
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1943|12|26|1877|12|23}}
| death_place = Wispers Farm, [[Nairobi]], [[Kenya Colony]]
| occupation =
| education = [[Marlborough College|Marlborough]] and [[Oxford]]
| alma_mater = [[All Souls College, Oxford]]
| parents = Rev Oscar Dan Watkins (born [[Lucknow, India]], 1848)<br> Elizabeth Martha née Ferris (born [[Allahabad, India]], 1846)
}}

Lt Col '''Oscar Ferris Watkins''' CMG CBE DSO (1877–1943) was a British colonial administrator, Commandant of the East African [[Carrier Corps]]<ref name="Hodges1986">{{cite book|last1=Hodges|first1=Geoffrey|title=The Carrier Corps – Military Labour in the East African Campaign 1914–18|date=1986|publisher=Greenwood Pres|location=New York, USA }}</ref> in the [[World War I|First World War]]. After the war he was acting Kenya Chief Native Commissioner and a [[Provincial Commissioner]], and first editor of a Swahili newspaper ''[[Baraza]]''.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Durrani|first1=Shiraz|title=Never be Silent Publishing & Imperialism in Kenya 1884–1963|date=1995|publisher=Vita books|location=London, England| page=253 }}Note that Durrani's list of Kenyan Newspapers confuses the details on the Baraza & Habari newspapers.</ref>

He was the son of Rev Oscar Dan Watkins (1848–1926), Archdeacon of Lucknow,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Chatterton|first1=Eyre|title=A History of the Church of England in India Since the Early Days of the East India Company By Eyre Chatterton, Bishop of Nagpur|date=1924|publisher=SPCK|location=London| chapter=Chapter XXII. The Diocese of Lucknow. The Land of Historic Cities. |url=http://anglicanhistory.org/india/chatterton1924/22.html}}</ref> and Elizabeth Martha née Ferris (1846–1928) and was born in [[Allahabad]].<ref name="Watkins">{{cite book|last1=Watkins|first1=Elizabeth|title=Oscar from Africa – The Biography of Oscar Ferris Watkins 1877–1943|date=1995|publisher=Radcliffe Press|location=London, England| page=13 |isbn=9781850439486|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vwB7xfNQVSoC}}</ref>

Educated at [[Marlborough College|Marlborough]] {{sfn|Watkins|1995|page=16}} and a 'bible clerk', that is undergraduate scholar at [[All Souls College, Oxford]], by virtue of being a [[founders' kin]],{{sfn|Watkins|1995|pp=17}} in 1899 Watkins cut short his study to enlist in the ranks of the [[Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry]] in the [[Second Boer War]]; after the war joining the [[South African Police]]. In 1907 he moved to Kenya and as a junior District Commissioner in Kenya he was a magistrate in the Kenya Slave courts, freeing slaves from [[Arab slave trade|Arab slavers]] on the East African coast {{sfn|Watkins|1995|page=50}} and developing a lasting interest in [[Swahili people|Swahili]] culture.

During the [[World War I|First World War]] Watkins set up the [[Carrier Corps]],<ref>{{cite book|last1=War Office| title=Unpublished Draft of History of East Africa Campaign|date=1939|publisher=War Office|location=London }}Copy in Rhodes house papers, Oxford</ref>{{Sfn|Hodges1986}}and strove to organise an effective force while at the same time protecting the hundreds of thousands of African porters conscripted into the force from the excessive demands of the British high command. After the war, as acting Kenya [[Chief Native Commissioner]] his active stance in protecting the land rights of the native Kenya tribes against the encroachments of white [[White people in Kenya|Kenya Settler]] interests earned him the enmity of the governor [[Sir Edward Denham]]. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he used his knowledge of Swahili to broadcast and edit ''[[Baraza]]'', a sister paper to the ''[[East African Standard]]'', started with a subsidy from the Colonial Government to bolster the British war effort in East Africa.

In 1917 he married Olga Florence née Baillie Grohman, widow of Thomas Acland Douglas Thompson (1881–1915); and daughter of [[William Adolf Baillie Grohman]] (1851–1921) and Florence née Nickalls (1861–1945).<ref name="pedigree">{{cite web| title=Watkins Pedigree on My Heritage |url=https://www.myheritage.com/site-family-tree-403818101/watkins-knowles-family}}</ref> They had three daughters:
* Olga Penelope Ferris 'Pella' Watkins (1918–1993) who married Oliver Montgomery MC (1922–2016).
* Grace Veronica Ferris 'Ronnie' Watkins (1920–2011) who married Brigadier Patrick Malcolm Hughes MBE (1911–1996)
* [[Elizabeth Watkins|Elizabeth June Ferris Watkins]] (1923–2012) who married Oliver Staniforth Knowles (1920–2008). She wrote biographies of both Olga<ref>{{cite book|last1=Watkins|first1=Elizabeth|title=Olga in Kenya: Repressing the Irrepressible|date=2005|publisher=Pen Press Publishers Ltd|location=Brighton, Sussex, England|isbn=978-1905203741|page=9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KYGyWqNSCh8C}}</ref> and Oscar.{{sfn|Watkins|1995}}

==See also==
* [[East African campaign (World War I)]]
* [[Elizabeth Watkins]]
* [[Kenya#Colonial history|History of Kenya – Colonial History]]
* [[Tanzania#War with Germany in East Africa|History of Tanzania – First World War]]

==Bibliography==
* ''Oscar from Africa'' – Biography of O.F. Watkins. Radcliff Press 1995
* ''The Carrier Corps'' – Military Labour in the East African Campaign 1914–18. Geoffrey Hodges Greenwood Press NY 1986

{{Authority control}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Watkins, Oscar Ferris}}
[[Category:1877 births]]
[[Category:1943 deaths]]
[[Category:Settlers of Kenya]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of the Second Boer War]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of World War I]]
[[Category:Companions of the Distinguished Service Order]]
[[Category:Colonial Administrative Service officers]]
[[Category:Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry soldiers]]
[[Category:Alumni of All Souls College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Members of the Legislative Council of Kenya]]
[[Category:British Kenya people]]
[[Category:White Kenyan people]]
[[Category:Military personnel of British India]]

Oscar Ferris Watkins - Revision history

Bot at 09:23, 8 November 2022