20 Facts About Kingsley Fairbridge

Kingsley Ogilvie Fairbridge was the founder of a child emigration scheme from Britain to its colonies and the Fairbridge Schools.

Kingsley Fairbridge's father was a surveyor in Umtali.

Kingsley Fairbridge had no further schooling until he prepared to enter Oxford University in 1908 at the age of 23.

Kingsley Fairbridge then took up market gardening and early in 1903 visited his grandmother in England for about 12 months.

On his return to Africa, Kingsley Fairbridge worked for two and a half years for a Mr Freeman who was recruiting locals to work in gold mines near Johannesburg.

Kingsley Fairbridge applied to the Rhodes trustees for a scholarship, feeling that once in England he would find ways of developing his scheme.

Kingsley Fairbridge was informed by the Rhodes trustees that if he passed the Oxford entrance examination his application would be favourably considered, and in 1906, he went to England to be privately coached.

In October 1908, Kingsley Fairbridge entered Exeter College, Oxford, with a Rhodes Scholarship.

Kingsley Fairbridge began to write on child emigration until he was advised by a friend that speaking would be more effective.

Kingsley Fairbridge was rebuffed by the British South Africa Company, which informed him that they considered Rhodesia too young a country in which to start child emigration.

On 19 October 1909, Kingsley Fairbridge addressed a meeting of 49 fellow undergraduates at the Colonial Club at Oxford, and at the end of the meeting a motion was carried that those present should form themselves into a society for the furtherance of child emigration to the colonies.

Kingsley Fairbridge's plan was to provide children training in agriculture and domestic service before putting them out to service.

At the 1917 state election in Western Australia, Kingsley Fairbridge stood for the Country Party in the seat of Murray-Wellington.

Kingsley Fairbridge was defeated by the sitting member, William George of the Nationalist Party.

Kingsley Fairbridge's great-grandfather was a member of the Children's Friend Society in 1833.

In December 1911, Kingsley Fairbridge married a former nurse, Ruby Ethel Whitmore, who had been encouraging and helping him for some time.

Kingsley Fairbridge knew and greatly admired Cecil Rhodes, and named his eldest son Rhodes.

Rhodes Kingsley Fairbridge was an eminent geologist and climate scientist.

Kingsley Fairbridge suffered considerably from malaria, sciatica and lumbago and in the last few years of his life endured pain and general ill-health.

Kingsley Fairbridge died at the age of 39 on 19 July 1924 in Perth, while recuperating from a minor operation related to a lymphatic tumour.