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Meru is a town in formerly Eastern Province of Kenya. It is the headquarters of the Meru County, and the sixth largest urban centre in the country. Meru forms a municipal council with a population of 240,900 residents.〔Kenya National Bureau of Statistics: (''Population of local authorities'' )〕 The city is located at 0.047035 degrees north and 37.649803 degrees east, on the northeast slopes of Mount Kenya. The Kathita River passes adjacent to the town. The main administrative part of the town is on the North side of the Kathita River. While the south side of the river is where residential areas are sited. Meru Town is situated about five miles north of the equator, at an altitude of approximately 5,000 feet, in an area of mixed forest and clearings, small towns, villages and rural farms. The town is predominantly populated by the Meru people, a Bantu ethnic group. In addition there are other people having different and diverse religions, cultures and all walks of life who live, trade and work in this agricultural and commercial town. ==History== (Meru Town's ) first District Commissioner was Edward Butler Horne. The Meru nicknamed him Kangangi, meaning the little wanderer due to his short size and the fact that he traveled around Meru a lot as he surveyed the District. This was at a time when the Meru community lived a fairly settled life in ridge-top communities. The City’s foundation in its present location was as a result of the military limitations of E. B. Horne’s original camp at Mwitari's (homestead).〔F C. Gamble, assistant district commissioner, Meru, 1915. Private letter, 10 October 1919, "Lambert Papers"〕 In 1912, according to Madeleine Laverne Platts, wife of W. A. F. Platts, Meru’s first Assistant District Commissioner:
As E.B. Horne was settling in Meru, Methodist leaders were seeking expansion. John B. Griffiths, a Welshman minister previously working at the Kenya coast, petitioned the colonial government to grant the entire Embu region to the Methodists as an exclusive religious sphere. The request was denied because the government considered it unsafe. Griffiths then applied a second time, requesting that the comparatively "peaceful" Meru district be regarded as the exclusive sphere of the United Methodist church. In December 1909 the government agreed.〔Hopkins, Trail Blazers and Road Makers , 89. 8. Ibid., 97. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid., 98-99.〕 Griffiths's party arrived at "Fort Meru" in October 1909, to be met by E. B. Horne who allotted the Methodists a plot of land at Ka-Aga. This was then a spirit forest, known to the Meru as the “place of curse removers ()”, less than two miles north east of his new administrative headquarters. Griffiths's subsequent report of his expedition described Meru as a land of "hills, valleys, and innumerable streams." He found it
In January 1912 he and Griffiths and a Reverend Frank Mimmack occupied the allotted site and begun construction of the first buildings. They were later joined by Rev. Reginald T. Worthington. This site in Kaaga has grown to be Meru’s Education Centre, with a National School, A leading school for students with special needs, two provincial schools and two Primary schools. In 1956, The Methodist Mission approached the Meru County Council and requested to be allotted land. Their request was granted and they were allotted 50 acres of land where they established the Methodist Training Institute in 1958. This institute grew over the years and merged with two other colleges to become The Kenya Methodist University, Kenya’s largest private University. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Meru, Kenya」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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