Jeffrey Soane Cambell
Who ???
This WebSite holds the letters that Gervas wrote home to his parents, who were Gerard Arden Clay (GAC) and Ella Violet Clay (EVC). These letters were kept by his parents in a number of binders.
Filed in among those letters from Gervas were some letters from one Jeffrey Soane Cambell - of whom I had never heard.
It turns out that he was "an old Northern Rhodesia hand", and Gervas invited him to share his bungalow.
So it is only right that Soane's letters be posted here; it is interesting to get another point of view !
I need to mention that these letters were transcribed by "dictation software", so there are mistakes. One I caught was "Paparazzi" for "Barotse" ! Please tell me of any you notice.
19340419 Soane Cambell to EVC
19340805 Soane Cambell to EVC
19340830 Soane Cambell to GAC
19341114 Soane Cambell to GAC
19341212 Soane Cambell to EVC
19350621 Soane Cambell to EVC
There is no record of Soane's birth in England or Wales here, nor in Scotland here. However, some documents have been found that establish some facts of his life.
Soane was born in Lewes, Sussex, on 8th February 1878 - so he was 29 years older than Gervas, who called him "Pa" - Soane was only seven years younger than Gervas's father.
Soane was 21 in 1900 - so it is quite possible that he joined the British Army and was sent out to South Africa to fight in the Boer War, and perhaps after that he headed North to Barotseland. Perhaps we shall see. Soane seems to have been somewhat like the character played by Lee Marvin - "born under a wandering star".
"Home is made for coming from,
for dreams of going to
Which with any luck will never come true."
In Mongu on 11 Februay 1915 - three days after his 37th birthday - Soane was married to Annie Victoria Orford; she was 27.
Annie was born in Bradden, Northants, on 21st June 1887, the daughter of a Clergyman, the Rev. Horace Orford.
On 6th October 1894, aged 7, she emigrated to South Africa with her father on the Union Castle S.S. Guelph.
On 29 June 1908, a week after her 21st birthday, (but I don't know where - possibly in Africa), she had married one Austin Kenneth Williams; I have found no death for him, but it's possible (though unlikely) that they divorced. They had no children. How / why / when Annie came to Africa is not (yet) known.
In the 1930s Annie ran a hotel in Choma, Northern Rhodesia, and they had two teenage daughters, Cynthia (Link) and Nancy (Link). Their daughter Alesia Lucy Winifred was born in Mongu in 1916 but died there in 1918. Soane's wife Annie died on 2nd May 1976 in Bulawayo, where she had lived for many years.
Soane had been in Barotseland since the early 2900s, and his name among the natives was "Makwengula". In 1934, while his wife was running her hotel in Choma, Soane, then 56, was living with Gervas, then 27, in Mankoya - hence these letters. While there, he also wrote an article “Barotse Reminiscences” which is available in the Livingstone Museum under this reference - ALM LM2/4/108/1, pp. 6, 8.
In 1950, eight years after Soane's death, the first issue of the new Northern Rhodesia Journal carried an article, “I Knew Lewanika”, written by Soane and edited by Gervas. It may have been this that sowed the seed for Gervas to write his only published book, "Your friend, Lewanika" (Chatto & Windus, 1968).
Also among Gervas's papers is this cutting (from an unknown newspaper) possibly - probably ? - written by Gervas :-
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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1942
J. S. CAMBELL
With the death of Jeffery Soane Cambell, Northern Rhodesia loses one of her old-timers and a host of friends will deplore
the passing of "Pop" (or "Pa") and two generations of Malozi mourn their "Makwengula", writes a correspondent.
An Edwardian at heart, he brought to the present day a flavour of the Naughty Nineties and the Pink 'Un; he combined a robust Bohemianism with an old-fashioned courtliness of manner, a scholarly instinct and a real love and knowledge of nature, above all, of the fauna of Africa.
While it was difficult to get Cambell to speak of his early life, he delighted in telling of the years since 1908 that he spent in this country, chiefly in Barotseland, and he had a never-failing fund of reminiscences about old times and his fellow-timers.
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