SOME FOUNDING FIGURES IN EAST AFRICAN HERPETOLOGY. Frederick Jackson. Born in Yorkshire in 1860, Sir Frederick John Jackson came to East Africa in 1884, to join Jack Haggard, the British Consul at Lamu, on a shooting expedition. He spent the next 20 years exploring, collecting, hunting and engaging in military adventures in East Africa; during the suppression of a mutiny by Sudanese soldiers in Uganda in 1898 he was shot through the lungs. In 1907 he was appointed Lieutenant Governor for the East African Protectorate (effectively modern-day Kenya) and in 1911 he was promoted to Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Uganda, a post he held until 1917. For good measure, in 1906, he organised the founding of the Kenya Game Department. Jackson was a sportsman and a naturalist and sent his specimens to the British Museum. He has fifteen taxa of birds (including Jackson’s Hornbill and Jackson’s francolin) and five taxa of reptiles named after him (Aparallactus jacksoni, Adolfus jacksoni, Lycophidion capense jacksoni, Trioceros (ex-Chamaeleo) jacksoni and Thrasops jacksoni; sadly the night adder that he collected at Lamu, named Causus jacksonii by Albert Günther turned out to be C. resimus). He also has several mammals and fish named for him, including Jackson’s mongoose and Jackson’s marbled mountain catfish. His adventures are documented in his posthumously published book ‘Early Days in East Africa’, (1930) it is a super book, with memorable thumbnail sketches of East African ‘characters’ of that time, although curiously he hardly mentions the taxa that are named for him. His magnum opus on East African birds was also published after his death. An extremely modest and unselfish man, Jackson’s regard for the indigenous people of East Africa brought him into conflict with Sir Charles Elliot, the Commissioner for the Protectorate; a fracas that lead to Elliot’s resignation. Jackson died in 1929. It is said that Sir Henry Rider Haggard, who knew Jackson well, based the fictional adventurer Allan Quatermain (hero of ‘King Solomon’s Mines’ and other African yarns) on Jackson!
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 15:25:59 +0000
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