11 Facts About Philip Percival

Philip Hope Percival was a renowned white hunter and early safari guide in colonial Kenya.

Philip Percival worked with well-known white hunters like Bror von Blixen-Finecke and mentored Sydney Downey and Harry Selby, and was known in African hunting circles as the "Dean of Hunters".

Philip Percival was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in Northern England, at the tail end of the 19th century.

When Philip Percival was still quite young, his older brother Blaney was born on 1875 and went off to East Africa, and proceeded to send Philip Percival several exciting accounts of his life as a game warden there.

When Philip Percival turned 21 he inherited a small sum of money and struck out to join his brother in Africa, sailing to Mombasa.

Philip Percival settled in Limuru, where he grew coffee and wheat and bred ostriches, cattle and horses.

At first, Philip Percival mainly hunted lion with the Hills, but in time he started to lead hunting trips of his own.

Philip Percival went on to become the first president of the East African Professional Hunter's Association, a position he served in for 15 years.

In 1930, before his tenure as EAPHA president, Philip Percival left Safariland to team up with Bror von Blixen-Finecke in the joint venture Tanganyika Guides Ltd.

Yet Philip Percival was not the only model for Wilson, and indeed critics have identified Bror von Blixen as another influence, especially in terms of Wilson's "cynicism and womanizing".

Philip Percival mentored a new generation of African hunters, including Sydney Downey, who called him "the greatest white hunter of all time", and Harry Selby, who himself went on to captivate a new generation of foreigners through the travel writings of Robert Ruark.