John Henry Patterson Popular Books

John Henry Patterson Biography & Facts

Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Patterson (10 November 1867 – 18 June 1947) was an Irish military officer, hunter, and author best known for his book The Man-eaters of Tsavo (1907), which details Patterson's experiences during the construction of a railway bridge over the Tsavo River in the East Africa Protectorate from 1898 to 1899. The book went on to inspire three films: Bwana Devil (1952), Killers of Kilimanjaro (1959), and The Ghost and the Darkness (1996). During World War I, Patterson served as the commander of the British Army's Jewish Legion, which has been described as the first precursor to the Israel Defense Forces. Biography Youth and Army service Patterson was born in 1867 in Forgney, Ballymahon, County Longford, Ireland, to a Protestant father and Roman Catholic mother. He joined the British Army in 1885 at the age of seventeen and eventually attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). He retired from the army in 1920. East African adventures In 1898, Patterson was commissioned by the Uganda Railway committee in London to oversee the construction of a railway bridge over the Tsavo River in present-day Kenya. He arrived at the site in March of that year. Tsavo railway and man-eaters Almost immediately after Patterson's arrival, lion attacks began to take place on the workforce, with the lions dragging men out of their tents at night and feeding on their victims. Despite the building of thorn barriers (bomas) around the camps, bonfires at night, and strict after-dark curfews, the attacks escalated dramatically, to the point where the bridge construction ceased due to a fearful, mass departure by the workers. Along with the obvious financial consequences of the work stoppage, Patterson faced the challenge of maintaining his authority and even his personal safety at this remote site against the increasingly hostile and superstitious workers, many of whom were convinced that the lions were in fact evil spirits, come to punish those who worked at Tsavo, and that he was the cause of the misfortune because the attacks had coincided with his arrival. The man-eating behaviour was considered highly unusual for lions and was eventually confirmed to be the work of a pair of rogue males, who were believed to be responsible for as many as 140 deaths. Railway records attribute only 28 worker deaths to the lions, but the predators were also reported to have killed a significant number of local people of which no official record was ever kept, which attributed to the railway's smaller record. Various theories have been put forward to account for the lions' man-eating behaviour: poor burial practices, low populations of food source animals due to disease, etc. There was a slave trade route through the area, which contributed to a considerable number of abandoned bodies. Patterson reported seeing considerable instances of unburied human remains and open graves in the area, and it is believed that the lions (which, like most predators, will readily scavenge for food) adapted to this abundant, accessible food supply and eventually turned to humans as their primary food source. A modern analysis shows one of the lion's skulls had a badly abscessed canine tooth that could have hindered normal hunting behaviour. However, this hypothesis accounts for the behaviour of only one of the lions involved, and Patterson himself had disclaimed such theories, saying he had damaged the lion's tooth himself. With his reputation, livelihood, and safety at stake, Patterson, an experienced tiger hunter from his military service in India, undertook an extensive effort to deal with the crisis. After months of attempts and near misses, he killed the first lion on the night of 9 December 1898 and the second one on the morning of 29 December (narrowly escaping death when the wounded animal charged him). The lions were maneless like many others in the Tsavo area, and both were exceptionally large. Each lion was over nine feet long from nose to tip of tail and required at least eight men to carry it back to the camp. The workers and local people immediately declared Patterson a hero, and word of the event quickly spread far and wide, as evidenced by the subsequent telegrams of congratulations he received. Word of the incident was even mentioned in the House of Lords, by the Prime Minister Lord Salisbury. With the man-eater threat eliminated, the workforce returned and the Tsavo railway bridge was completed on 7 February 1899. Although the rails were destroyed by German soldiers during the First World War, the stone foundations were left standing and the bridge was subsequently repaired. The workers, who in earlier months had all but threatened to kill him, presented Patterson with a silver bowl in appreciation for the risks he had undertaken on their behalf, with the following inscription: "SIR, – We, your Overseer, Timekeepers, Mistaris and Workmen, present you with this bowl as a token of our gratitude to you for your bravery in killing two-man-eating lions at great risk to your own life, thereby saving us from the fate of being devoured by these terrible monsters who nightly broke into our tents and took our fellow-workers from our side. In presenting you with this bowl, we all add our prayers for your long life, happiness and prosperity. We shall ever remain, Sir, Your grateful servants, Baboo PURSHOTAM HURJEE PURMAR, Overseer and Clerk of Works, on behalf of your Workmen. Dated at Tsavo, 30 January 1899." Patterson considered the bowl to be his most highly prized and hardest won trophy. In 1907, he published his first book, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo, which documented his adventures during his time there. It was the basis for three films; Bwana Devil (1953), Killers of Kilimanjaro (1959) and the 1996 Paramount Pictures film, The Ghost and the Darkness, starring Val Kilmer (as Patterson) and Michael Douglas (as the fictional character "Remington"). In 1924, after speaking at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois, Patterson agreed to sell the Tsavo lion skins and skulls to the museum for the then sizeable sum of $5,000. The lion skins were then stuffed and are now on permanent display along with the original skulls. The reconstructed lions are actually smaller than their original size, due to their skins' having been trimmed for use as trophy rugs in Patterson's house. Eland discovery In 1906, Patterson returned to the Tsavo area for a hunting trip. During the trip, he shot an eland, which he noted possessed different features from elands in Southern Africa, where the species was first recognized. On returning to England, Patterson had the head of the eland mounted, where it was seen by Richard Lydekker, a member of the faculty of the British Museum. Lydekker identified Patterson's trophy as a new subspecies of eland, which Lydekker named Taurotragus oryx pattersonianius. Game warden and Blyth Colonial Secretary .... Discover the John Henry Patterson popular books. Find the top 100 most popular John Henry Patterson books.