Elspeth Joscelin Huxley CBE (née Grant; 23 July 1907 – 10 January 1997)[1] was an English writer, journalist, broadcaster, magistrate, environmentalist, farmer, and government adviser.
[3] Nellie and Major Josceline Grant, Elspeth's parents, arrived in Thika in what was then British East Africa in 1912, to start a life as coffee farmers in colonial Kenya.
[4] Huxley's 1959 book The Flame Trees of Thika explores how unprepared for rustic life the early British settlers really were.
Huxley's 1939 book Red Strangers describes life among the Kikuyu of Kenya around the time of the arrival of the first European settlers.
Although she was initially an advocate of continued colonial rule, she later called for the independence of African nations.
Huxley died on 10 January 1997 aged 89, in a nursing home at Tetbury in Gloucestershire, England.
The collection covers Huxley's whole career (1896-1981) and subject matter includes Kenyan safari landscapes and local people (specifically the Kikuyu people), the Mau Mau uprising, white settlers, Edwardian Mombasa, and a transcript of an oral history interview taken by the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum (Ref.