Frederick Courteney Selous, DSO (31 December 1851 – 4 January 1917) was a British explorer, army officer, professional hunter, and conservationist, famous for his exploits in Southeast Africa. His real-life adventures inspired Sir Henry Rider Haggard to create the fictional character Allan Quatermain. Selous was a friend of Theodore Roosevelt, Cecil Rhodes and Frederick Russell Burnham. He was pre-eminent within a group of big game hunters that included Abel Chapman and Arthur Henry Neumann. He was the older brother of the ornithologist and writer Edmund Selous.
Early life and exploration
Frederick Courteney Selous was born on 31 December 1851 at Regent's Park, London, as one of the five children of an upper middle class family, the third-generation descendant of a Huguenot immigrant. His father, Frederick Lokes Slous (original spelling) (1802–1892), was Chairman of the London Stock Exchange, and his mother, Ann Holgate Sherborn (1827–1913), was a published poet. One of his uncles was a 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, although as adults, in contrast to Frederick's fame as a big-game hunter, Edmund would fervently oppose the killing of animals for sport or scientific collection. All of the family members were artistically inclined, as well as being successful in business.
