BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA FIRST POSTMASTER GENERAL - Ernest Edward Harrhy

By Dr Colin Baker

Copyright : Society of Malawi Journal Volume 44, Number 1, 1991.

Ernest Edward Harrhy was born in 1869 in Brecon of a poor, hardworking and well-respected family. His father was a stage driver carrying the Post Office mails, and his mother supplemented the modest family income by taking in washing for the local gentry. There were five other children of the family: James, Tom, William, David and Sarah Anne. The family home was 6 Market Street, Brecon (a small cottage which was purchased much later by the Brecon Borough Council for demolition in 1970).

Ernest was a bright child and his parents sent him to the Pendre, Brecon, Church of England School, adjoining the cathedral, where each Monday morning, along with all the other children he paid fourpence for the week's education. Such was his progress that at the age of thirteen years he was sent to Christ College Brecon where he stayed until he was seventeen.

When he left Christ College, in 1886 he joined the staff of the General Post Office in London, and three years later travelled to South Africa where he joined the Cape Telegraphs at Craddock on 15 November 1889. He became Clerk in the Secretary's Office in 1891; Clerk in the Parcel, Audit and Inland Mail Branch on 1st March 1891; and Clerk to the Postmaster General, Cape Town early in 1893.

It was whilst he was serving as Clerk to the Postmaster General of Cape Town, Sir Somerset French, that Harry Johnston, then Commissioner and Consul General of British Central Africa sought Somerset French's help and secured the secondment of Harrhy to his own Administration for a year. Harrhy travelled to British Central Africa with Johnston, leaving Cape Town on 11th May 1993 for Tshiromo. He was appointed British Central Africa's first Postmaster General, at the age of 24 years, and soon established a service of African mail runners - "clad in long frock coats, knickers and fez, minus boots and stockings" and armed with Snider rifles - from Port Herald on to the Lower Shire River, via Tshiromo and Tshikwawa to Blantyre in the Shire Highlands and on to Mpimbi on the Middle Shire from which point the mails were carried north by river and lake steamer. He also established regular weekly mails between Chiromo and Blantyre, thrice-weekly mails between Blantyre the commercial capital and Zomba the Government administrative headquarters, and weekly mails between Blantyre, Mlanje, Mpimbi and Fort Johnston. In the last six weeks of 1893 - from 19 November to 28 December, Harrhy set up the Post Office of Exchange at the Tshinde concession, and thereafter the sorting and distribution of the mails, formerly done at Tshiromo by Hugh Charlie Marshall, were carried out at Tshinde. During his time in the Protectorate, Post Offices were set up at Blantyre, Fife, Fort Anderson, Fort Johnston, Fort Lister, Fort Maguire, Kalungwizi, Karonga, Mlanje, Port Herald, Rhodesia, Tanganyika, Tshikwawa, Tshinde, Tshiromo, Mpimbi, Zomba, Johnston Falls, Abercorn, Deep Bay, Likoma, Leopard Bay, Fort Liwonde, and Fort Rosebery. Harrhy returned to South Africa in 1894

It is probable that he spent a furlough in Britain after leaving British Central Africa because he did not resume his post as Clerk to the Postmaster General of Cape Town until 1 st April 1895.

He was promoted First Class Clerk on 1st July 1901, worked in the Chief clerk's office from 1905 to 1908, and was Principal Clerk in the Foreign Mails Branch from 1909 to 1910. He was posted to the Inland Mails Branch as Principal Clerk from 1914 to 1921 in which year, at the age of 52, he retired and received a pension. During his service his salary rose from £140 a year in 1892, £360 a year in 1905, to £800 a year when he retired in 1921. His pension in 1937 was about £500 a year.

During his service in South Africa he took periodic leaves and travelled to Britain where those who remembered him in Brecon described him as a smartly dressed gentleman, of fair complexion, about 5'8" in height. He was a keen photographer and his photographs were sufficiently good for seven of them to be included in Johnston's "British Central Africa": one of a scene on the southern shore of Lake Nyasa, three of Sikh soldiers, one of a rural post office in British Central Africa, one of the Consulate building in Blantyre, and one labelled "In camp - after a day's shooting" It is probable that this last is a photograph including Harrhy himself. It shows a camp tent pitched beneath a tree in the bush, outside which is an African holding a towel beside a European who is sitting naked in a shallow canvas bath, with a large metal bowl beside him, one hand holding a sponge behind his neck, the other maintaining respectability. The European has a very pale skin save for his face and neck which are well tanned. He has short cropped fairish hair and a moustache. There is only one camp bed in the tent and no evidence of any other European. Since we know that the photograph was taken by Harrhy it is likely that he took it with atime delay and that the photograph is of himself. In his retirement Harrhy lived at the Hotel Avalon in Cape Town. In 1936, on 10 August, he wrote his will. He was only 67 years old then but he may already have been ill. Certainly thereafter he purchased medicine at P. Zetler's the chemist, attended the Diakones Hospital and the Volks Hospital, engaged the professional nursing services of Nurse M. Gregg and the service of Dr. S.F. Silberbauer and Dr. Thomas Jones. On March 8th 1937 he died at the Volks Hospital, Cape Town. At his own request he was cremated, for which purpose he had taken out two shares in the Post Office Friendly Society.

When he died he had £97 in the Standard Bank and to this was added £20 realised from the sale of his gold and single diamond ring, the total sum being bequeathed to his unmarried sister Sarah Anne in Brecon. He had two close friends, Harry Wortlan Wright and his wife Susan who lived at 197 Lower Main Road, Observatory; he appointed his "old friend" Harry as his sole executor and bequeathed all his personal belongings, including radio, pictures, trunks and clothing, valued at £20, to Susan. By this time two of his brothers, James (who had earlier lived at Montpellier, 24 Godfrey Road, Newport, Monmouthshire and is buried in Saint Wollos Cemetery) and Tom were dead but the other two, William Henry and David George, were still alive as were his nephew Ernest and nieces Florrie and Sybil.

Of Ernest Edward Harrhy's 67 years, he had spent 35 in the postal service, 32 of them in Africa. Of these he spent slightly over one year as British Central Africa's first Postmaster General but to that very full and busy year may be attributed the foundation of the Protectorate's postal service: a significant accomplishment for a young man only 24 years of age.

Sources:

1. H.H Johnston British Central Africa, London, Methuen, 1897.
2. F. Melville British Central Africa and the Nyasaland Protectorate, London, Melville, 1909
3. Cape of Good Hope Civil Service Lists 1892-1894; Cape Public Service List, 1914; Cape Civil Service List, 1921
4. Supreme Court, Cape Town, Records: Death Notice, Will, Liquidation and Distribution Account in the estate of Ernest Edward Harrhy, No. 54079.
5. Master of the Supreme Court, Cape Town, to author 24 July 1970, IVA.Ec15.1278. privately held.
6. Chief of the Cape Archives Depot to the Legation Secretary, South African Legation, Blantyre, Malawi, 10 July 1970, privately held.
7. E. Franklyn Jones, Town Clerk, Borough of Brecon, to author 4 and 27 November 1970, privately held.
8. W.C. Evans, Brecon, to Town Clerk, Brecon, November 1970, privately held.
9. D.Marlowe, Public Relations Officer, Borough ofNewport, to author, 16 March 1971, privately held.
10. R.J. Boulton, Recorder, Old Breconian Association to author, 24 September 1980, privately held.