Hesketh Prichard
| Hesketh Prichard | |||||||
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| Born | 1876 | ||||||
| Died | 1922 | ||||||
| Residence | Craven Lodge, Horsham, Surrey | ||||||
| Occupation | explorer | ||||||
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Contents
Notes
Office Notes
House Notes
Proposed by J.L. Myres; seconded by A.C. Haddon 1901.12.21
spelt Pritchard in 1902, 1903 list
Notes From Elsewhere
Major Hesketh Vernon Prichard, later Hesketh-Prichard, DSO, MC, FRGS, FZS (17 November 1876 – 14 June 1922) was an explorer, adventurer, big-game hunter and marksman who made a significant contribution to sniping practice within the British Army during the First World War. Concerned not only with improving the quality of marksmanship, the measures he introduced to counter the threat of German snipers were credited by a contemporary with saving the lives of over 3,500 Allied soldiers.
During his lifetime, he also explored territory never seen before by white man, played cricket at first-class level, including on overseas tours, wrote short stories and novels (one of which was turned into a Douglas Fairbanks film) and was a successful newspaper correspondent and travel writer. His many activities brought him into the highest social and professional circles. Like other turn of the century hunters such as Teddy Roosevelt, he was an active campaigner for animal welfare and succeeded in seeing legal measures introduced for their protection....
In 1899 Pearson chose Hesketh-Prichard to explore and report on the relatively unknown republic of Haiti, wanting something dramatic with which to launch his forthcoming Daily Express. His mother accompanied him as far as Jamaica; in later years she would often travel with him to remote destinations in a time when it was uncommon for a woman of her age to do so. Hesketh-Prichard travelled extensively into the uncharted interior of Haiti, narrowly avoiding death on one occasion when someone tried to poison him.[1] No white man was believed to have crossed the island since 1803, and his trip provided the first written description of some of the secret practices of "vaudoux" (voodoo).[8] He later wrote a vivid account of his travels in the popular book Where Black Rules White: A Journey Across and About Hayti.[9]
Pearson welcomed his reports, and on his return immediately commissioned him to travel to Patagonia to investigate dramatic rumours of a hairy beast roaming the land. The animal was conjectured by Natural History Museum director Ray Lankester to be a living example of the long-extinct giant ground sloth.[9] Hesketh-Prichard's talent for descriptive narration enthralled the readers of the Daily Express. He explored the area surrounding Lake Argentino, finding one of its feeder lakes, naming it Lake Pearson after his patron, and their connecting river Caterina after his mother.[10] Lake Pearson was subsequently renamed Lake Anita, but the Río Caterina, known for its salmon, retains the name Hesketh-Prichard gave it.[11] The surrounding area is now part of Los Glaciares National Park.
Although he found no traces of the creature after a year overseas and 10,000 miles (16,000 km) of travel, he did provide compelling descriptions of unknown areas of the country, its fauna and inhabitants.[9] He acquired the pelt of an unknown subspecies of puma, naming it Felis concolor pearsoni. (The puma is now considered to be a variety of the southern South American cougar Puma concolor concolor.) The grass species Poa prichardii was named after Hesketh-Prichard after he brought back a specimen.[12] He compiled the story of his travels in the well-received Through the Heart of Patagonia
Publications
External Publications
Where Black Rules White: A Journey Across and About Hayti.
Through the Heart of Patagonia
Through Trackless Labrador 1911
In 1904, the mother-and-son writing team produced The Chronicles of Don Q., a collection of short stories featuring the fictional rogue Don Quebranta Huesos, a Spanish Robin Hood-like figure who was fierce to the evil rich but kind-hearted to the virtuous poor. A second collection, The New Chronicles of Don Q. followed in 1906. The pair produced a full-length novel, Don Q.'s Love Story, in 1909. Don Q. was brought to the stage in 1921 when it was performed at the Apollo Theatre, London.[17] In 1925, the book was reworked as a Zorro vehicle by screenwriters Jack Cunningham and Lotta Woods; the United Artists silent film Don Q, Son of Zorro was produced by Douglas Fairbanks, who also starred as its lead character.[18] The New York Times rated the film one of its top ten movies of the year.[19]
In 1913, writing on his own, Hesketh-Prichard created the crime-fighting figure "November Joe", a hunter and backwoodsman from the Canadian wilderness.[20] It was broadcast as a radio play by the BBC on 23 September 1970