NGONG JANUARY 10, 2017(CISA) – Emeritus Bishop Colin Cameron Davies, Bishop Emeritus of the Catholic Diocese of Ngong is dead.
Bishop Davies died on January 8 at Freshfield town in England.
“It is with regret that we inform you the death of Bishop Colin Davies at 7.45 pm on Sunday 8th January 2017 in Freshfield, aged 92,” read a statement sent to CISA today by the Catholic Diocese of Ngong Communications office.
Bishop Davies was born on June 10, 1924 in the Canary Islands, Spain, to Arthur Davies and Ellen Mary (neé Joyce), the third in the family of six children.
His father was an engineer and the family moved about with his job. After his Secondary education he became an apprentice engineer with a company in Argentina and obtained a degree in Civil Engineering.
He was sent to Canada to train as a Pilot and also as a Pilot Instructor.
He was commissioned as a Pilot Officer but never saw active war service as his graduation coincided with the end of the Second World War.
He later joined Seminary Training for the Diocese of Westminster, taking up a place in St Edmund’s, Ware on September 1946.
He took his Perpetual Oath in 1951 and was ordained to the missionary priesthood on July 13, 1952 in St Joseph’s College by Edward Myers, Coadjutor Archbishop of Westminster.
For seven years after ordination Colin taught at St Peter’s College, Freshfield, then in 1959 he was appointed to a completely new mission in the Catholic Diocese of Ngong, a Prefecture in Kenya, where he worked with the Maasai people.
He served in the diocese for 45 years first as a missionary, then from 1964 as Prefect Apostolic. He was later ordained bishop of Ngong on February 27, 1977 and served until 2003 as the first Bishop of the diocese.
As Prefect Apostolic and a bishop he fashioned a diocese that was both pastorally effective and financially viable.
In 2002 Colin celebrated his Golden Jubilee as a priest and Silver Jubilee as a Bishop and during the year his resignation as Bishop was finally accepted.
At first, after his resignation, he was chaplain to the Missionary Sisters of the Catechism, and later the chaplain to the Franciscan Sisters of St Joseph, in Asumbi, Homa Bay, a community of over 70 sisters made up of retired and sick sisters and novices.
He also published a book on history of the Catholic Diocese of Ngong, ‘Mission to the Maasai’ in 2006.
