Shiwa Ngandu - The Estate in Gore-Browne's Later Life

The Estate in Gore-Browne's Later Life

Shiwa Ngandu's remoteness and isolation from white settler society in Northern Rhodesia's southern half and in Southern Rhodesia gave Gore-Browne a perspective on black Africans which led him to believe the country should develop in a more collaborative direction than the settler-ruled and segregationist Southern Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa. He involved himself in politics as detailed in his biographical article.

The estate never managed to make consistent and steady profits. The soil was too acidic for most crops, and after trying various other sources of revenue, they found a more stable income in the production of essential oils and citrus blossoms especially when the Second World War closed off supplies of essential oils from the rivieras of France and Bulgaria. However, his projects were heavily subsidized by Dame Ethel Locke King, with whom he was obsessively attached and corresponded from his childhood until her death. This source of revenue ended in 1958 when the citrus trees were attacked by a blight.

Stewart Gore-Browne died in Kasama, Zambia in 1967, and to this date is the only white man to have been given a state funeral in the history of Zambia, with a eulogy given by then President Kenneth Kaunda.