This list of big-game hunters includes sportsmen and sportswomen who gained fame largely or solely because of their big-game hunting exploits. The members of this list either hunted big game for sport, to advance the science of their day, or as professional hunters. It includes brief biographical details focusing on the type of game hunted, methods employed, and weapons used by those featured.
Africa Bunny Allen Frank Maurice "Bunny" Allen (1906–2002) was an English-born professional safari guide in Kenya. Born in Buckinghamshire, as a young boy Allen learnt to poach game, gaining the nickname "Bunny" for his skill at snaring rabbits. In 1927 Allen followed his older brothers to Kenya. Managing a farm, Allen would take guests of the owner on shoots, bringing him to the attention of Bror von Blixen-Finecke and Denys Finch Hatton. Allen soon became one of Finch Hatton's guns on shoots, including the Prince of Wales' 1928 safari. Rising to captain in the 6th King's African Rifles during World War II, after the war Allen started his own safari business and by the 1950s was considered the best and the most expensive safari operator in Kenya. Allen was also regularly employed by film studios when filming in Africa. He is rumoured to have had love affairs with Grace Kelly and Ava Gardner. Allen predominantly used a .470 Nitro Express double rifle from John Rigby & Company to hunt big game.
Yank Allen George "Yank" Allen (1867–1924) was an American-born professional lion hunter in Northern and Southern Rhodesia in the early 20th century. Allen was originally a Texan cowboy who reputedly left the United States as a result of a gunfight, first travelling to South America before arriving in Southern Africa in 1900. Renowned as an eccentric, Allen was quite contemptuous of lions, never referring to them as lions but instead calling them "dawgs" that did not roar but instead "bawled". Allen supplemented his income by hunting lion for the protection of cattle, charging farmers £7 per lion. In 1912 Allen became a professional lion hunter when the Southern Rhodesian cattle enterprise Liebig's hired him to protect their herd of 20,000 cattle, paying him £10 per lion plus transport and labour. Allen always hunted alone, not trusting his native help, and his favorite rifles for lion hunting were a .303 British service rifle and a .577 Black Powder Express double rifle. At the time of his death he was said to have killed around 300 lions, making him in the opinion of "Pondoro" Taylor one of the most successful lion hunters ever.
Major G. H. Anderson Major Gordon H. "Andy" Anderson (1878–1946) was a British soldier, elephant hunter and safari guide. Anderson commenced big-game hunting in 1909 and elephant hunting in 1912, after meeting lifelong friend Jim Sutherland. Over the course of his life Anderson shot between 350 and 400 elephants, his favourite calibres for elephant hunting being the .577 Nitro Express, the .470 Nitro Express and the .318 Westley Richards. From 1921 Anderson also started acting as a professional safari guide, his most notable clients being the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother) in 1924 and (in partnership with Denys Finch Hatton) the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) and his brother Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester in 1928. In 1934 Anderson was one of the founding members of the East African Professional Hunter's Association. In 1946 he wrote his autobiography, African Safaris, which was published posthumously.
William Charles Baldwin
William Charles Baldwin (1826–1903) was an English-born big-game hunter in 19th-century South Africa. Born in Leyland, Lancashire, from a young age Baldwin had an innate love of sports, dogs and horses. From the age of six he spent two days a week on a pony following the local harriers. After school Baldwin tried being a clerk in a shipping office and a farmer but in 1851 he packed his guns, rifles, saddles and seven deerhounds, purchased from Earl Fitzwilliam's gamekeeper at great expense, and sailed for South Africa to hunt elephant. Baldwin hunted from Zululand to the Zambezi and west to Lake Ngami. He claimed to be the second white man to set eyes on the Victoria Falls in 1860. Baldwin hunted mainly mounted on horseback with local hounds, the deerhounds having proved of little use. He returned to England in 1861, never returning to Africa. In 1863 he published a memoir African hunting: from Natal to the Zambezi.
Deaf Banks
Frederick Grant "Deaf" Banks (1875–1954) was variously a trader, government official, planter, elephant hunter and game ranger in Uganda. Born in London, but raised in Christchurch, New Zealand, Banks went to Africa in 1896 at the age of 21. Initially working with a coastal merchant, Banks moved into coffee planting and then set off on a prospecting trip to the Congo before he took to big-game hunting. Banks did most of his hunting in Uganda Protectorate and the Lado Enclave, and is said to have killed over 1,000 elephants in his life, despite being almost completely deaf. Banks did most of his elephant hunting with a 6.5×54mm Mannlicher–Schönauer in open country and a .577 Nitro Express double rifle for cover.
W. D. M. "Karamojo" Bell Walter Dalrymple Maitland "Karamojo" Bell (1880–1954) was a Scottish, soldier, fighter pilot, adventurer and elephant hunter. Arriving in Africa in 1896, and after hunting man-eating lions for the Uganda Railway and then serving in the Boer War, from 1902 Bell hunted elephant in Kenya, Uganda, Abyssinia, Sudan, the Lado Enclave (one of the few to do so there legally), French Ivory Coast, Liberia, French Congo, and the Belgian Congo. During his hunting career, Bell shot 1,011 elephants and numerous other game including 25 lions, 16 leopards, 4 white rhinoceros, 67 black rhinoceros and between 600 and 700 buffalo. Bell was an exceptional shot who preferred to hunt with smaller calibre bolt-action rifles rather than with large bore double rifles; around 800 of his elephants were killed with a 7mm Mauser. Bell published three books on his time in Africa, The Wanderings of An Elephant Hunter in 1923 and Karamojo Safari in 1949, and Bell of Africa which was published posthumously. He also wrote a number of magazine articles for Country Life and American Rifleman. Bell is considered one of the most successful of Africa's professional elephant hunters.
Bror Blixen
Baron Bror Fredrik "Blix" von Blixen-Finecke (1886–1946) was a Swedish baron, writer and professional safari guide. Blixen arrived in Kenya in 1913 with his new wife, his second cousin Karen von Blixen-Finecke. The marriage did not last, Blixen was a renowned philanderer, and after their separation in 1922 he was forced to flee from his creditors and hide in the bush. Close friend Sir Robert Coryndon intervened and referred some friends to Blixen to go on safari, and throughout the 1920s and 1930s he guided safaris throughout East Africa, notable clients included Edward, Prince of Wales and Ernest Hemingway. Blixen returned to Sweden in 1938, where he died eight years later at the age of 59. Blixen hunted extensively with a .600 Nitro Express double rifle by W. J. Jeffery & Co., in 1937 he published an autobiography in Swedish, African hunter. He is fictionalised by Klaus Maria Brandauer in the Oscar-winning film Out of Africa.
Peter Capstick Peter Hathaway Capstick (1940–1996) was an American big-game hunter and author. Born in New Jersey, after a short career as a Wall Street stockbroker, Capstick headed to Latin America shortly before his thirtieth birthday to become a professional hunter. After several years he returned to New York City where he arranged professionally guided hunting trips. Making his first trip to Africa in 1968, Capstick later became a professional hunter and game ranger in Zambia, Botswana, and Rhodesia. Publishing articles about hunting and adventure from the late 1960s, Capstick published his first book Death in the Long Grass in 1977, establishing his reputation as a writer.
Cigar Cigar was a 19th-century hottentot elephant hunter. Originally a jockey in Grahamstown, Cigar first hunted elephant for William Finaughty in 1869, keeping half of the ivory from elephants he shot. Finaughty stated Cigar was an excellent horseman and a fair shot, but his fear of elephants prevented him from having any success at that time. Frederick Selous first met Cigar in 1872 when Cigar agreed to take Selous elephant hunting; by then he had completely overcome his fear of elephants. At the time Cigar employed two native hunters and three porters; Selous described Cigar as a slightly built active man with wonderful endurance and a very good game shot who hunted with an old heavy 6 bore muzzleloader. Cigar originally hunted elephant from horseback with Finaughty, but when Selous met him he hunted them on foot due to tsetse flies.
Lady Grizel Winifred Louisa Cochrane
Lady Cochrane or 'Lady Grizel Hamilton' (1880–1977) was a Welsh and Scottish daughter of Winifred, Countess of Dundonald, Douglas Cochrane, 12th Earl of Dundonald and the wife of Lt.-Col. Hon. Ralph Gerard Alexander Hamilton, Master of Belhaven (who was killed in action in WWI). Along with her husband, she was a keen huntress, to which, she'd often travel to Kenya, Africa to embark on her big game hunting. Some of the animals she killed were: hippopotamus, wildebeest, leopard, rhinoceros, waterbuck, and Cape buffalo. Her hunts were extensively covered in popular magazines and newspaper articles.Illustrated London News – Saturday 29 February 1908The Bystander – Wednesday 4 March 1908
William Finaughty William "Old Bill" Finaughty (1843–1917) was a 19th-century elephant hunter in Southern Africa. Born in Grahamstown, in 1864 at age 21 Finaughty travelled to Matabeleland to trade; chief Mzilikazi was friendly to his party and he witnessed a dance of 25,000 warriors. Shooting his first elephants on that trip, after making further expeditions in 1865 and 1866, Finaughty decided to hunt elephant professionally in 1867, which he did until 1876. Finaughty did all of his hunting from horseback, predominantly with a 4 bore muzzle loader, which fired a 4 oz bullet driven by "a handful of powder", whose recoil would leave his shoulder black and blue after a day's elephant hunting and on a number of occasions knocked him out of the saddle. On one of his last hunts Finaughty used a "newly invented" breech loading rifled 12 bore, and the memory of its recoil still made his eyes water 30 years later. It is believed Finaughty killed over 400 elephants in his life. He retired from elephant hunting when most elephants moved into tsetse fly country, not wanting to risk himself or his horses. In 1913, American Mr G.L. Harrison interviewed Finaughty, and upon his return to the United States he published Finaughty's recollections in The recollections of William Finaughty – elephant hunter 1864–1875.
Denys Finch-Hatton