Frederick Selous

Frederick Courteney Selous was born in London in 1851 of an intellectual family whose wide interests included natural history. He was educated at Rugby and on the continent, and came to Africa at the age of nineteen to become an elephant hunter. He admits to having been influenced in his choice of career by William Charles Baldwin's book, African Hunting from Natal to the Zambesi, which was published in 1864. After a short stay on the Kimberley diamond diggings, he moved north to Matabeleland, and, by the time he was twenty-five, he had the reputation of being the most daring and successful ivory hunter in Africa. For nearly twenty years he explored, hunted, and traded over the country between the Limpopo River and the Congo Basin, providing the inspiration for Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain. He was a keen naturalist and an ardent collector, with a particular interest in butterflies. In later life he extended his collection of specimens of animals, birds, and birds' eggs to many other countries. In 1881 his first book, A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa, was published. A classic on hunting, it contains accounts of his explorations beyond the Zambezi, on the Chobe River, and in Matabeleland and Mashonaland, with full notes on the natural history and distribution of all the large mammalia. Over a twenty-six year period, he produced six major works and many lesser papers for the Journals of the Royal Geographical Society of which he was a Gold Medallist. With his wide knowledge of southeast Africa, and his good standing with the African chiefs, Selous was an obvious choice when Rhodes was looking for a guide to lead the Pioneer Column into Mashonalandin 1890. He was given the responsibility of cutting a wagon road from Macloutsie, where the Charter Company had assembled a force of some 400 men, to Mount Hampden-a distance of 460 miles. As a servant of the British South Africa Company, he later played an active role in bringing the district of Manica under Britrish control. He fought and was wounded in the Matabele War of 1893, after which he returned to England. He returned to Africa in 1895 as manager of the Essexville Estate. With the outbreak of the Matabele Rebellion in 1896, he assumed command of H Troop of the Bulawayo Field Force. He followed this period of soldiering with a narrative of events in Matabeleland before and during the Rebellion, this being published shortly after his return once more to England, under the title SUNSHINE AND STORM IN RHODESIA. Settling in England, he resumed his hunting adventures, undertaking expeditions to many parts of the world. In 1908, he was invited by President Theodore Roosevelt, with whom he was on intimate terms, to accompany him on a hunting expedition to East Africa. Though over sixty years of age, he offered his services in World War I and was gazetted lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers in 1915, and captain a few months later. He accompanied his unit to East Africa as an intelligence officer. In September 1916, he received the D.S.O. "for conspicuous gallantry, resource, and endurance." He was killed at Beho-Beho near Kisaki, in Tanganyika, on 4 January 1917, at the age of 65. Frederick Courtney Selous-hero, hunter, explorer, and naturalist-was truly the stuff of which legend is made.