Funeral Planning: British Involvement in the Funeral of President Jomo Kenyatta

Abstract

The funeral of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president, offers revealing evidence of the intimacy and depth of Britain’s continuing relationship with this former colony 15 years after independence. First approached by leading Kenyans for assistance in planning the funeral in 1968, British policy-makers willingly became involved, and continued low-level preparations for this over the following decade. When Kenyatta finally died, in 1978, British advice and planning lay behind the central elements of a funeral which incoming president Daniel arap Moi used to publicly demonstrate his succession. Yet the story of the funeral also shows that the relationship was sometimes incoherent and drew on multiple, sometimes cross-cutting, personal ties and institutional links, both political and military; neither the funeral itself nor Kenya’s politics worked to a script written by British officials.