Charles Pitman (scientist)

Charles Robert Senhouse Pitman, DSO, MC (19 March 1890 – 18 September 1975) was a noted herpetologist, conservationist and friend of Joy Adamson.

Charles Pitman was born in Bombay and educated at the Royal Naval School, Eltham, at Blundell's School in Tiverton, and at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, which he left in 1909 having obtained a commission in the Indian Army.

After a brief initial posting, Pitman joined the 27th Punjabis with which he stayed from 1910 to 1921 when he retired from the army to take up farming in Kenya. During his army career, which spanned the First World War, Pitman fought in Mesopotamia (where he was awarded the DSO and MC), and also in Egypt and France.

In 1924 Pitman was offered the position of Game Warden of the Uganda Protectorate. After his marriage to Marjorie Fielding Duncan, he assumed this post which he held from 1925-1951, interrupted only by three years (1931-1933) spent in Northern Rhodesia as Acting Game Warden and undertaking a faunal survey, and by five years (1941-1946) during which he was Director, Security Intelligence (Uganda).

After leaving Uganda in 1951, Pitman and his wife moved to London and during this time Pitman was very active with conservation and preservation groups such as the Elsa Foundation, the Fauna Preservation Society, and the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. He kept up an active correspondence with other naturalists such as Joy Adamson and C.J.P. Ionides.

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