Frederick Selous | |
---|---|
Selous circa 1911
|
|
Birth name | Frederick Courteney Selous |
Born | 31 December 1851 London, England |
Died | January 4, 1917 Behobeho, German East Africa (now the Selous Game Reserve in southeastern Tanzania) |
(aged 65)
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Rank | Captain |
Commands held | Bulawayo Field Force, Matabeleland; 25th Royal Fusiliers, East Africa |
Battles/wars |
First Matabele War, Second Matabele War, World War I: --East African Campaign |
Awards |
Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, British South Africa Company Medal Distinguished Service Order |
Other work | Famous African hunter and explorer, conservationist, writer |
Frederick Courteney Selous DSO (/səˈluː/; 31 December 1851 – 4 January 1917) was a British explorer, officer, hunter, and conservationist, famous for his exploits in Southeast Africa. His real-life adventures inspired Sir H. Rider Haggard to create the fictional Allan Quatermain character. Selous was also a friend of Theodore Roosevelt, Cecil Rhodes and Frederick Russell Burnham. He was pre-eminent within a select group of big game hunters that included Abel Chapman and Arthur Henry Neumann. He was the older brother of ornithologist and writer Edmund Selous.
Frederick Courteney Selous was born on 31 December 1851 at Regent's Park, London, as one of the five children of an aristocratic family, third generation of part-Huguenot heritage. His father, Frederick Lokes Slous (original spelling) (1802–1892), was Chairman of the and his mother, Ann Holgate Sherborn (1827–1913), was a published poet. One of his uncles was painter Henry Courtney Selous. Frederick had three sisters (Florence (born 1850), Annie Berryman (born 1853), and Sybil Jane (born 1862)), and one brother (Edmund Selous (1857–1934)) who became a famous ornithologist. Frederick's love for the outdoors and wildlife was shared only by his brother; however, all of the family members were artistically inclined, as well as being successful in business.