Clifton Gates

Young Clifton c 1870

Clifton Gates Sleight was born at Tamba- Tamba in 1860, the son of Brougham Sleight and Lady Margaret.
As his mother died when he was just a few months old Clifton Gates was sent to live with relatives in England.
He was a good scholar, a progressive thinker, who modelled himself on his hero, Prince Albert.
Clifton Gates was something of a celebrity at Oxford, where he wore elaborate military uniforms and styled himself Heir Apparent to the Rajah of Tamba- Tamba. He visited the island on alternate years and returned permanently in 1895, having revitalised his father's remaining English estates through the mechanisation of agriculture and the wool industry.
During the last four years of his father's life, during which the Old Kakoy was showing increasing signs of senility, Clifton Gates became more actively involved in the running of the island.
Clifton Gates found the Council obsequious and shambolic. And he told them so.
He wanted a body of men to help him to govern the island and to ensure that his rule was fair. He brought in his cousin, The Hon. Sir Hugo Gates, who had some diplomatic experience in the Colonies, to support him in the administration of the state.

Clifton Gates, Oxford 1882

Clifton Gates' tenure as Kakoy coincided with one of the most progressive periods in history, and at this time Tamba- Tamba did indeed see many technological leaps forward, including the first automobile, the first aeroplane to land on the island and the introduction of mechanised industry.