Meeting with Belgians 1911 - The 5 British members of the commission sailed from Southampton in July 1911, and started work as soon as they arrived in Northern Rhodesia. The commission finished its work in January 1914. Gore Browne had now tasted adventure, and by the beginning of 1914, at the age of thirty, he made up his mind to settle in Northern Rhodesia. “My Africans are nearly all Bemba,” he says, “and they told me how good their country was. So I decided to go and see it”. In March 1914, with about 30 carriers, he set out from Ndola to march to Mpulungu, on Lake Tanganyika, looking for land on which to settle.

Sir Gore-Browne's Couriers - “One day, after we had been on the march for several weeks,” he recalls, “we came to a lake in a cradle of hills. I knew I had found what I was looking for. That day, beside the lake , I shot my first rhino” and of the lake he wrote ” I was surrounded by hilly country, and along its shores were groves of rare trees, of kind sacred to Africans. Friendly folk inhabited the one big village on the lakeshore and there were a dozen herds of different wild game. The surrounding land seemed to be reasonably fertile judging by the crops that were ripening there. I knew at once that I had found what I was looking for." Legend has it that the local tribe, having arrived from the Congo onto the north eastern plateau, came across a dead crocodile. They thought this an excellent omen and since the name for crocodile was Ng’andu, they called themselves Bena Ng’andu - ‘The people of the Royal Crocodile’ and settled around the Lake. The Lake became known as Ishiba Ng'andu - ‘The Lake of the Royal Crocodile.

Having managed to buy the land, he then made his way to Dar Es Salaam on the East coast where he caught a northbound ship and returned to England. War had broken out and his journey home was broken in France where he rejoin his regiments as a captain with the expeditionary force . He was soon promoted to Brigadier Major with the 5th Division and his part in the battle of the Somme was awarded the DSO and mentioned in dispatches. In 1920, Gore Browne decided it was time to get back to Northern Rhodesia, and forsake his army career. ... “on my first morning back at Shiwa I walked down to the lake and it suddenly struck me: here I was starting a completely new life at the age of 47, and in all these years I had learned nothing that would be of any use to me now.”

Gore Browne made a model of the house he wished to build, and then using local materials, set about the task - with African carpenters, builders and blacksmiths. Bricks were made on the Estate and mortared with mud. Roads were built, more transport introduced and a sawmill with diesel power. Buildings went up and nursery gardens were laid out. Shiwa Ng’andu gradually became a showpiece of Northern Rhodesia, where a courteous squire, possessed of a taste for diplomacy, ruled his estate with benevolence and a hand of iron.

Building a home of his dreams more than 400 miles from the railhead was not easy. Normally the journey was made from Ndola. With his carriers Gore-Browne walked 70 miles, across the Congo pedicle to Kapalala. From there it was a ten-day journey by canoe up the Luapula to Nsumbu in Lake Bengweulu, then up the Chambeshi River to an old rubber factory. The final 70 miles from the rubber factory to Shiwa was done on foot. The whole journey, from Ndola to Shiwa, took 3 weeks. With no money coming in, two brother officers had who had joined him, became restless and left. Gore-Browne became more dedicated. The force with which he drove himself and his Africans earned him the Bemba name of “Chipembere,” or Rhinoceros. (“He behaved just like Chipembere, the most bad tempered animal in the bush,” says one of his old retainers).

The early years of Shiwa were disappointing and hard. The soil proved unsuitable even for maize; transport charges almost prohibitive already, mounted alarmingly. But Gore-Browne remained undaunted. In 1927 he returned to England where he met and married Lorna Goldman 22 years his junior and daughter of his first love Lorna Bosworth-Smith.

She returned to Shiwa with him and together they tried various crops and livestock schemes at Shiwa. With the highly acid soils the crops proved largely unsuccessful. They had two daughters, Lorna Katherine and Angela. His brother arrived from England with sufficient knowledge of the production of essential oils and citrus blossoms became the foundation of Shiwa. Then the citrus trees were attacked by a blight, and in 1958 it was no longer viable.

Joe Saville who once worked for Sir Stewart wrote “ I have never worked as hard for anyone as I worked for the Colonel, but he worked himself hard, too. In the early days he ran the labour force along military lines, falling the men in and numbering them off. I let all that fall away. .. He was a good administrator and watched expenditure on the Estate carefully, but he was careless in small ways, He once told me he had bought a lot of chickens. I could find only two or three. He had been paying 2c / 6d each for a chicken worth 6d- and was buying the same one over and over again.”

Jack Mwanza, assistant estate manage for Sir Stewart once wrote “Sir Stewart has not only earned the respect of the people, but their deep affection as well. They have an implicit faith in him.” This almost naïve regard for him was evident in the way in which people would greet him , falling on bended knee wherever they saw him. Shiwa became a microcosm of the almost Utopian state that he believed Northern Rhodesia could become. He established a miniature welfare state, where the needs of his people are met from birth to death; the rewards are earned by hard work. Those not prepared to work hard did not last long. Shiwa had its own schools, hospital (which was later given to the Government), and playing fields; its own shops, post office, clubs and aerodrome; the homes of its workers, were as good as the best in Africa.

Life at Shiwa was comfortable and unhurried; the main dining room, with its vast table, was now seldom used. Venison still featured frequently on the menu, and the cellar was well stocked with wines (much of it imported in the cask and bottled at Shiwa); after dinner the house hold servants came in, each to receive his glass of wine. While on holiday, in England,in 1935, he accepted and invitation to stand in the forthcoming election. Despite Roy Welensky backing Gore-Browne’s opponent they developed one of the strangest friendships and political partnership in Central African history. “On the face of it,” says Lewis Gann, author of recent history of Northern Rhodesia, “few could have had less in common than the unknown trade unionist from Broken Hill, without a drop of British blood in his veins, and the tall, distinguished and aristocratic-looking landowner from overseas, English to the core.”
In the Legislative Council, Gore-Browne soon became a power in the land. He helped set the stage for the Northern Rhodesia of yesterday. He was more closely attuned to African thinking than the administration was, “and “ said Welensky, “he always enjoyed the respect and trust of Africans....He was an eloquent speaker and his speeches were the most statesman like that had ever been heard in Northern Rhodesia. He was a man of outstanding calibre, forceful and courageous.” He said and did what he thought was right, irrespective of opposition or consequences; he was never tied to any narrow, partisan interest. In 1945, he was to be Knighted for his services to the Legislative Council.

A political storm broke over his head and it became increasingly difficult for Gore-Browne to reconcile his Chiefs and Representatives of African interest with Leadership of Officials, so at the end of 1946 he resigned his leadership and in 1951 he resigned from the Legislative Council and retired to devote his energies to Shiwa. He continued to advise first the African National Congress under his early protégé, Harry Nkumbula and later, after the break away, the United National Independence party, under his close friend, Kenneth Kaunda.

By the late 1950’s Shiwa Ng'andu epitomized everything Sir Stewart represented - orderly, neat, precise. For years it had been an oasis for travellers on the Great North Road, a place where hospitality has never refused; and this little bit of England in Africa never ceased to impress its visitors. At eighty-one , he had the upright bearing of a soldier; his mind was as incisive as ever, and his sense of humour even more developed. He laughed easily and tailored his anecdotes and stories to suit the company. His interests ranged widely, and he talked with a distant note of authority in his voice. He was always an avid reader and possessed an extensive library; his knowledge of Greek and Latin was still fresh, and he spoke fluent French; to drive home the point, he fluently quoted from the classics. In debate he was a good listener, and his analytical mind enabled him to seize on any weak link in a chain of logic. He showed a genuine concern about his appearance, and a pride in his family background and the achievements of Shiwa. Of his larger personal achievements he was modest, and while he would have liked to think he had made a permanent contribution to Northern Rhodesia, he was not convinced that he had.

In 1962 after a failed attempt to come back into politics, he went to live quietly at Shiwa with his daughter, Lorna, his son in law, John Harvey who managed the estate, and 3 grand children, Penelope, Charles and Mark. Separated, Lady Gore-Browne was living in England, and made occasional long visits to Shiwa. Their second daughter Angela, married with two daughters, Karen and Amanda had moved to Kenya where she lectured at the Royal College in Nairobi. His constant companion was his chauffer for 30 years, Henry Mulenga. Together they had toured much of Africa and, in ‘seven seas tours’, most of Europe; between them there was a strong bond of friendship. “Sir Stewart has bought me a farm of my own 15 miles from Shiwa,” says the quiet-spoken Henry. “My family live there and I visit them on weekends. When my services are no longer required at Shiwa, I shall retire there to become a full-time farmer”. But with Sir Stewart as active as he was, Henry expected this still to be a long way off.

Sir Stewart died on 8 August 1967 in Kasama some 200 kilometers from Shiwa. Lady Gore-Browne died in London on 17 December 2001.