ABSTRACT
In late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, the period soldier-hunter, more correctly the officer-hunter, is well represented by the iconic Frederick Courtney Selous (1859–1917). After a life of adventure, hunting, exploration and imperial wars, he died heroically on the Western Front in 1917, praised widely as the masculine archetype of the nation, a ‘true hero’ of his age. His self-reliance, courage and daring were fully appreciated by his alma mater, Rugby School, well before his death, in its magazine, The Meteor: Selous lectured at Rugby School in 1897 on ‘Travel and Adventure in South Africa’, and took the heads and skins of six lions on to the lecture platform with him, along with his hunting rifle. 1 This clearly made something of an impact. The president of the school’s Natural History Society remarked in his vote of thanks that Rugby had ‘given to the world many great men, but there was no name which the world at large was accustomed to associate with the fame of Rugby School than that of Selous’. 2 Praise indeed.
