Cause of Death: |
Killed in action, at Beho Beho, while fighting a bush war on the banks of the Rufiji River, against German colonial Schutztruppen, outnumbered five-to-one. That morning, in combat during a minor engagement, while creeping forward, he raised his head and binoculars to locate the enemy and was shot in the head by a German sniper. He was killed instantly. |
Additional
Information: |
Son of Frederick Lokes Selous and Ann Holgate Selous; husband of Gladys Maddy Selous, of Heatherside, Worplesdon, Surrey. Born in London 31 December 1851. His son also died on service.
Was a British explorer, officer, hunter, and conservationist, famous for his exploits in South-East Africa. His real-life adventures inspired Sir H. Rider Haggard to create the fictional Allan Quartermain 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.
He took part in the First Matabele War (1893), and was wounded during the advance on Bulawayo. It was during this advance that he first met fellow scout Frederick Russell Burnham, who had only just arrived in Africa and who continued on with the small scouting party to Bulawayo and observed the self-destruction of the Ndebele settlement as ordered by King Lobengula. Selous returned to England, married, and in 1896 the couple settled on an estate in Essexvale, Matabeleland, when the Second Matabele War broke out. He took a prominent part in the fighting which followed, serving as a leader in the Bulawayo Field Force, and published an account of the campaign entitled Sunshine and Storm in Rhodesia (1896). It was during this time that he met and fought alongside Robert Baden-Powell who was then a Major and newly appointed to the British Army headquarters staff in Matabeleland.
In World War I, at the age of 64, Selous participated in the fighting in East Africa, rejoining the British Army. He was promoted to Captain in the uniquely composed 25th (Frontiersmen) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers on 23 August 1915. Ref. South African Roll of Honour 1914-1918. |
