Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard
Encyclopedia
Major Hesketh Vernon 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, 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. Despite a lifetime's passion for shooting
, he was an active campaigner for animal welfare
and succeeded in seeing legal measures introduced for their protection.
, in the state of Uttar Pradesh
, India
. His father Hesketh Brodrick Prichard, an officer in the King's Own Scottish Borderers
, died from typhoid six weeks before he was born, leading him to be raised alone by his mother Kate O'Brien Ryall Prichard. She herself had come from a military family, her father being Major-General Browne William Ryall.
Hesketh-Prichard and his mother returned to Great Britain soon after, and lived for a while at her parents' house, before moving to St Helier on Jersey
for several years. His nickname was "Hex", which he would bear throughout his life. They returned to the mainland that the boy might be educated at a prep school
in Rugby
. In 1887 he won a scholarship to Fettes College
, Edinburgh
; his entrance paper was an essay on "Summer Sports". He excelled at sports there, particularly cricket
, at which the school magazine described him as "the best bowler we have had for a long time". He was invited to play for Scotland against South Africa, but declined as he would have been unable to play against Fette's rival Loretto School
. After school, he studied law privately in Horsham
, West Sussex
. He passed the preliminary exam, though he would never practice as a solicitor.
. That year he abandoned a career in law and spent the summer travelling around southern Europe and North Africa. He spent the sea-time on the trip writing or planning plots. When back in London, he and his mother wrote together under the pseudonyms "H. Heron" and "E. Heron", and saw publication in several journals, including Cornhill Magazine
. Hesketh-Prichard's circle of literary friends widened and he became acquainted with the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle
and J. M. Barrie
. In 1897 Barrie introduced him to the press baron Cyril Arthur Pearson
, who suggested he write a series of ghost stories for his monthly Pearson's Magazine
. Hesketh-Prichard and his mother created a series of stories around the character "Flaxman Low"', the first psychic detective
of fiction, though they were disconcerted to find the tales promoted by Pearson as "real". The collected work was published as The Experiences of Flaxman Low in 1899.
In 1897, he and his mother worked on the plot of A Modern Mercenary, the stories of Captain Rallywood, a dashing diplomat in Germany. It was published by Smith and Elder the following year. He travelled to South America in February 1898, seeing the construction work for the Panama Canal
, but returned after developing malaria
while in the Caribbean.
, 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. 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). He later wrote a vivid account of his travels in the popular book Where Black Rules White: A Journey Across and About Hayti.
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
. Hesketh-Prichard's talent for descriptive narration enthralled the readers of the Daily Express
. He explored the area surrounding Lake Argentino
, discovering one of its feeder lakes, naming it Lake Pearson after his patron, and their connecting river Caterina after his mother. Lake Pearson was subsequently renamed Lake Anita, but the Río Caterina, known for its salmon, retains the name Hesketh-Prichard gave it. The surrounding area is now part of Los Glaciares National Park
.
Although he found no traces of the creature after a year overseas and 10000 miles (16,093.4 km) of travel, he did provide compelling descriptions of unknown areas of the country, its fauna and inhabitants. 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. He compiled the story of his travels in the well-received Through the Heart of Patagonia.
In 2000, on the hundredth anniversary of both Hesketh-Prichard's trip and the newspaper's founding, the Daily Express despatched his great-grandson Charlie Jacoby to retrace his footsteps.
in August 1903, travelling up the coasts of Labrador
and Newfoundland, and donating the heads of stags he had shot to the Newfoundland Exhibition then in London. He returned in October 1904, this time with his mother, and the cricketer Teddy Wynyard
.
His most ambitious trip to the region was however in July 1910, when he undertook to explore the interior of Labrador, saying "it seemed to us a pity that such a terra incognita should continue to exist under the British flag". This same territory had claimed the life of writer Leonidas Hubbard
a few years earlier. He described his journey up the Fraser River
to access Indian House Lake on George River in the popular Through Trackless Labrador in 1911.
His reputation was such that former President Theodore Roosevelt
, a fellow writer, explorer and hunter, wrote to him, commending him on his latest book, which he described as the best that season, and asking to meet him.
-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. 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. The New York Times rated the film one of its top ten movies of the year.
In 1913, writing on his own, Hesketh-Prichard created the crime-fighting figure "November Joe", a hunter and backwoodsman from the Canadian wilderness. It was broadcast as a radio play by the BBC
on 23 September 1970.
Despite his reputation as a hunter, he campaigned to end the clubbing of Grey Seals around the coast. Aided by his friend Charles Lyell MP
, he was successful in seeing the Grey Seals (Protection) Act passed unopposed in 1914, Britain's first legal protection for non-game mammals. His article "Slaughtered for Fashion" in the March 1914 Pearson's Magazine argued to protect birds from slaughter for their plumage for millinery.
Hesketh-Prichard was a talented cricketer, and played for a number of teams, including Hampshire
, London County
, and Marylebone Cricket Club
. A right-arm fast bowler, he made his début in the first class game
when he played for Hampshire against Somerset
in the 1900 County Championship
. He was not however a strong batsman, and would typically play in the tail of the batting order
. He joined the short-lived London County in 1902, where he was a teammate of W. G. Grace
. In 1903 he played his first of several games for The Gentlemen v The Players
at Lords
. He would be selected for The Gentleman three years in succession. In 1904, he joined the MCC
, and took part in Lord Brackley's XI's tour of the West Indies
in the 1904/5 season. In 1907, he toured the United States with the MCC.
A tall man, he was able to use his height and reach to his advantage when bowling. In a first-class career that lasted from 1900 to 1913, he took 339 wickets for a total of 7,586 runs. A career best was 8/32 for Hampshire against Derbyshire in July 1905.
and Guards
, but both turned him down because of his age, then 37. He was eventually successful obtaining a post as Assistant Press Officer at the War Office
, and first sent to the front lines in France in February 1915 as an "eyewitness officer" in charge of war correspondent
s. By this time, open warfare on the front had ceased, and had stagnated into the trench warfare
that characterised much of the conflict. He witnessed there the victims of gas attack
.
Hesketh-Prichard was shocked to learn of the high attrition rate due to well-trained German sniper
s. It was common for British regiment
s to lose five men a day to snipers; he learned that one battalion
lost eighteen in a single day. The German snipers could not be located, leaving them free to continue shooting from their place of concealment. He was also dismayed by the poor quality of marksmanship amongst the British troops.
He set about improving the quality of marksmanship, calibrating and correcting the few telescopic sight
s that the army already possessed. He borrowed more sights and hunting rifles from friends and famous hunters back home, and funded the acquisition of others from his own pocket, or donations he solicited. To investigate the quality of German armour plate, he retrieved a sample from a German trench. He discovered that their armour could only be penetrated by a heavy cartridge such as Jeffery 333
, while British plate could be easily defeated by a much smaller gun such as a Mauser
.
s: by making use of an irregular top and face to the parapet, and constructing it from material of varying composition, the presence of a sniper or an observer poking his head up became much less conspicuous. In contrast, British trench practice had been to give a military-straight neat edge to the parapet top, making any movement or protrusion immediately obvious.
An observer was vulnerable to an enemy sniper firing a bullet through his loophole, but Hesketh-Prichard devised a metal-armoured double loophole that would protect him. The front loophole was fixed, but the rear was housed in a metal shutter sliding in grooves. Only when the two loopholes were lined up—a twenty-to-one chance—could an enemy shoot between them.
Another innovation was the use of a dummy head to find the location of an enemy sniper. The tempting target of a realistic papier-mâché
head was raised above the parapet on a stick running in a groove on a fixed board. To increase the realism, a lit cigarette could be inserted into the dummy's mouth and be smoked by a soldier via a rubber tube. If the head was shot, it was dropped rapidly, simulating a casualty. The sniper's bullet would have made a hole in the front and back of the dummy's head. The head was then raised in the groove again, but lower than before by the vertical distance between the glasses of a trench periscope
. If the lower glass of a periscope was placed before the front bullet hole, its upper glass would be at exactly the same height as the bullet had been. By looking through the rear hole in the head, through the front hole and up through the periscope, the soldier would be looking exactly along the line the bullet had taken, and so would be looking directly at the sniper, revealing his position.
's request to the Third Army School of Instruction and was made a general staff officer with the rank of captain. He was Mentioned in Despatches on 1 January 1916.
In August 1916, he founded the First Army School of Sniping in the village of Linghem
, Pas-de-Calais. Starting with a first class of only six, in time he was able to lecture to large numbers of soldiers from different Allied nations, proudly proclaiming in a letter that his school was turning out snipers at three times the rate of any such other school in the world. In October of that year he was awarded the Military Cross
, the citation of which read: "For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He has instructed snipers in the trenches on many occasions, and in most dangerous Circumstances, with great skill and determination. He has, directly and indirectly, inflicted enormous casualties on the enemy." His friend George Gray, himself a champion shooter, told him that he had reduced sniping casualties from five a week per battalion to forty-four in three months in sixty battalions; by his reckoning, this meant that Hesketh-Prichard had saved over 3,500 lives. He was promoted to major in November 1916. By this time in the war, his contributions to sniping had been such that the former German superiority in the practice had now been reversed.
, for his work with the First Army School of Sniping, Observation, and Scouting. For his wartime work with the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps
, he was appointed a Commander of the Military Order of Avis
.
He continued to write and hunt when his health permitted him. In 1920, he wrote his account of his war time activities in the critically acclaimed Sniping in France (full-text available on Wikisource and as a PDF document), which is still referenced by modern authors on the subject. The following year he wrote Sport in Wildest Britain, in which he shared his experiences of bird shooting, particularly in the Outer Hebrides
.
, whom he'd met through friends. They had three children: Michael (born 1909), Diana (1912) and Alfgar (1916). His son Alfgar Hesketh-Prichard was later recruited to the Special Operations Executive
during the Second World War, where he became the first head of its Czech Section, training agents to conduct the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich
. He died on service in Austria in December 1944, for which he was posthumously awarded the MC
.
, of which he had been a member for many years. Poor health forced him to resign in the following January.
Hesketh-Prichard died from sepsis
on 14 June 1922, at the ancestral home of his wife
at Gorhambury, Hertfordshire
, England. His obituarists ascribed this to an obscure form of blood poisoning brought on by gassing in the trenches during his war service. However, all of his ailments—fatigue, heart
–digestive
–neurological disorders, appendicitis
, cognitive problems, depression
, anxiety
—are recognized today as differential symptoms of malaria
. Left untreated they sometimes lead to organ failure and death. His body was cremated and the ashes interred in the family vault at St Michael's Church
, St Albans
. His mother survived him for some years, dying in 1935. His wife Elizabeth, later becoming Woman of the Bedchamber
to Queen Mary
, lived until 1975.
His biography was written two years after his death by his friend Eric Parker, who encapsulated his many accomplishments within its title: Hesketh Prichard D.S.O., M.C.: Explorer, Naturalist, Cricketer, Author, Soldier.
Works by Hesketh-Prichard
Distinguished Service Order
The Distinguished Service Order is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat.Instituted on 6 September...
, MC
Military Cross
The Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces; and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....
, FRGS
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society is a British learned society founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences...
, FZS
Zoological Society of London
The Zoological Society of London is a charity devoted to the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats...
(17 November 1876 – 14 June 1922) was an explorer, adventurer, big-game hunter and marksman
Marksman
A marksman is a person who is skilled in precision, or a sharpshooter shooting, using projectile weapons, such as with a rifle but most commonly with a sniper rifle, to shoot at long range targets...
who made a significant contribution to sniping
Sniper
A sniper is a marksman who shoots targets from concealed positions or distances exceeding the capabilities of regular personnel. Snipers typically have specialized training and distinct high-precision rifles....
practice within the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
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, played cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
at first-class
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
level, including on overseas tours, wrote short stories and novels (one of which was turned into a Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....
film) and was a successful newspaper correspondent
Correspondent
A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is a journalist or commentator, or more general speaking, an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, location. A foreign correspondent is stationed in a foreign...
and travel writer
Travel writing
Travel writing is a genre that has, as its focus, accounts of real or imaginary places. The genre encompasses a number of styles that may range from the documentary to the evocative, from literary to journalistic, and from the humorous to the serious....
. His many activities brought him into the highest social and professional circles. Despite a lifetime's passion for shooting
Shooting
Shooting is the act or process of firing rifles, shotguns or other projectile weapons such as bows or crossbows. Even the firing of artillery, rockets and missiles can be called shooting. A person who specializes in shooting is a marksman...
, he was an active campaigner for animal welfare
Animal welfare
Animal welfare is the physical and psychological well-being of animals.The term animal welfare can also mean human concern for animal welfare or a position in a debate on animal ethics and animal rights...
and succeeded in seeing legal measures introduced for their protection.
Early life
Hesketh-Prichard was born an only child on 17 November 1876 in JhansiJhansi
Jhansi Hindi:झाँसी, , Marathi: झाशी, is a historical city of India. Jhansi is the administrative headquarters of Jhansi District and Jhansi Division. The original walled city grew up around its stone fort, which crowns a neighboring rock. This district is on the bank of river Betwa.The National...
, in the state of Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. His father Hesketh Brodrick Prichard, an officer in the King's Own Scottish Borderers
King's Own Scottish Borderers
The King's Own Scottish Borderers was an infantry regiment of the British Army, part of the Scottish Division.-History:It was raised on 18 March 1689 by the Earl of Leven to defend Edinburgh against the Jacobite forces of James II. It is said that 800 men were recruited within the space of two hours...
, died from typhoid six weeks before he was born, leading him to be raised alone by his mother Kate O'Brien Ryall Prichard. She herself had come from a military family, her father being Major-General Browne William Ryall.
Hesketh-Prichard and his mother returned to Great Britain soon after, and lived for a while at her parents' house, before moving to St Helier on Jersey
Jersey
Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and...
for several years. His nickname was "Hex", which he would bear throughout his life. They returned to the mainland that the boy might be educated at a prep school
Preparatory school (UK)
In English language usage in the former British Empire, the present-day Commonwealth, a preparatory school is an independent school preparing children up to the age of eleven or thirteen for entry into fee-paying, secondary independent schools, some of which are known as public schools...
in Rugby
Rugby, Warwickshire
Rugby is a market town in Warwickshire, England, located on the River Avon. The town has a population of 61,988 making it the second largest town in the county...
. In 1887 he won a scholarship to Fettes College
Fettes College
Fettes College is an independent school for boarding and day pupils in Edinburgh, Scotland with over two thirds of its pupils in residence on campus...
, Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
; his entrance paper was an essay on "Summer Sports". He excelled at sports there, particularly cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
, at which the school magazine described him as "the best bowler we have had for a long time". He was invited to play for Scotland against South Africa, but declined as he would have been unable to play against Fette's rival Loretto School
Loretto School
Loretto School is an independent school in Scotland, founded in 1827. The campus occupies in Musselburgh, near Edinburgh.-History:Loretto was founded by the Reverend Thomas Langhorne in 1827. Langhorne came from Crosby Ravensworth, near Kirkby Stephen. The school was later taken over by his son,...
. After school, he studied law privately in Horsham
Horsham
Horsham is a market town with a population of 55,657 on the upper reaches of the River Arun in the centre of the Weald, West Sussex, in the historic County of Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester...
, West Sussex
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...
. He passed the preliminary exam, though he would never practice as a solicitor.
First publications
He wrote his first story "Tammer's Duel" in the summer of 1896, which his mother helped him refine, and was sold soon after to Pall Mall Magazine for a guineaGuinea (British coin)
The guinea is a coin that was minted in the Kingdom of England and later in the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom between 1663 and 1813...
. That year he abandoned a career in law and spent the summer travelling around southern Europe and North Africa. He spent the sea-time on the trip writing or planning plots. When back in London, he and his mother wrote together under the pseudonyms "H. Heron" and "E. Heron", and saw publication in several journals, including Cornhill Magazine
Cornhill Magazine
The Cornhill Magazine was a Victorian magazine and literary journal named after Cornhill Street in London.Cornhill was founded by George Murray Smith in 1860 and was published until 1975. It was a literary journal with a selection of articles on diverse subjects and serialisations of new novels...
. Hesketh-Prichard's circle of literary friends widened and he became acquainted with the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
and J. M. Barrie
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
. In 1897 Barrie introduced him to the press baron Cyril Arthur Pearson
Cyril Arthur Pearson
Sir Cyril Arthur Pearson, 1st Baronet, GBE was a British newspaper magnate and publisher, most noted for founding the Daily Express.-Family and Early life:...
, who suggested he write a series of ghost stories for his monthly Pearson's Magazine
Pearson's Magazine
Pearson's Magazine was an influential publication which first appeared in Britain in 1896. It specialised in speculative literature, political discussion, often of a socialist bent, and the arts. Its contributors included Upton Sinclair, George Bernard Shaw, Maxim Gorky and H. G...
. Hesketh-Prichard and his mother created a series of stories around the character "Flaxman Low"', the first psychic detective
Psychic detective
A psychic detective is defined as a person who investigates crimes by using their claimed paranormal psychic abilities. A number of people claim they have psychic abilities that have allowed them to assist police in solving kidnapping and murder cases, or locating a corpse...
of fiction, though they were disconcerted to find the tales promoted by Pearson as "real". The collected work was published as The Experiences of Flaxman Low in 1899.
In 1897, he and his mother worked on the plot of A Modern Mercenary, the stories of Captain Rallywood, a dashing diplomat in Germany. It was published by Smith and Elder the following year. He travelled to South America in February 1898, seeing the construction work for the Panama Canal
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
, but returned after developing malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
while in the Caribbean.
Commissioned trips
In 1899 Pearson chose Hesketh-Prichard to explore and report on the relatively unknown republic of HaitiHaiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
, wanting something dramatic with which to launch his forthcoming Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
. His mother accompanied him as far as Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
; 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. 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). He later wrote a vivid account of his travels in the popular book Where Black Rules White: A Journey Across and About Hayti.
Patagonia
Patagonia is a region located in Argentina and Chile, integrating the southernmost section of the Andes mountains to the southwest towards the Pacific ocean and from the east of the cordillera to the valleys it follows south through Colorado River towards Carmen de Patagones in the Atlantic Ocean...
to investigate dramatic rumours of a hairy beast roaming the land. The animal was conjectured by Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...
director Ray Lankester
Ray Lankester
Sir E. Ray Lankester KCB, FRS was a British zoologist, born in London.An invertebrate zoologist and evolutionary biologist, he held chairs at University College London and Oxford University. He was the third Director of the Natural History Museum, and was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal...
to be a living example of the long-extinct giant ground sloth
Mylodon
Mylodon is an extinct genus of giant ground sloth that lived in the Patagonia area of South America until roughly 10,000 years ago.Mylodon weighed about and stood up to tall when raised up on its hind legs. Preserved dung has shown it was a herbivore. It had very thick hide and had osteoderms...
. Hesketh-Prichard's talent for descriptive narration enthralled the readers of the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
. He explored the area surrounding Lake Argentino
Lake Argentino
Lago Argentino is a lake in the Patagonian , at . It is the biggest freshwater lake in Argentina, with a surface area of . It has an average depth of , and a maximum depth of ....
, discovering one of its feeder lakes, naming it Lake Pearson after his patron, and their connecting river Caterina after his mother. Lake Pearson was subsequently renamed Lake Anita, but the Río Caterina, known for its salmon, retains the name Hesketh-Prichard gave it. The surrounding area is now part of Los Glaciares National Park
Los Glaciares National Park
Parque Nacional Los Glaciares is a national park in the Santa Cruz Province, in Argentine Patagonia. It comprises an area of 4459 km². In 1981 it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO....
.
Although he found no traces of the creature after a year overseas and 10000 miles (16,093.4 km) of travel, he did provide compelling descriptions of unknown areas of the country, its fauna and inhabitants. 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. He compiled the story of his travels in the well-received Through the Heart of Patagonia.
In 2000, on the hundredth anniversary of both Hesketh-Prichard's trip and the newspaper's founding, the Daily Express despatched his great-grandson Charlie Jacoby to retrace his footsteps.
Labrador
Hesketh-Prichard first visited Atlantic CanadaAtlantic Canada
Atlantic Canada is the region of Canada comprising the four provinces located on the Atlantic coast, excluding Quebec: the three Maritime provinces – New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia – and Newfoundland and Labrador...
in August 1903, travelling up the coasts of Labrador
Labrador
Labrador is the distinct, northerly region of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It comprises the mainland portion of the province, separated from the island of Newfoundland by the Strait of Belle Isle...
and Newfoundland, and donating the heads of stags he had shot to the Newfoundland Exhibition then in London. He returned in October 1904, this time with his mother, and the cricketer Teddy Wynyard
Teddy Wynyard
Edward George Wynyard was an English cricketer who played in 3 Tests from 1896 to 1906.He captained Hampshire County Cricket Club between 1896 and 1899....
.
His most ambitious trip to the region was however in July 1910, when he undertook to explore the interior of Labrador, saying "it seemed to us a pity that such a terra incognita should continue to exist under the British flag". This same territory had claimed the life of writer Leonidas Hubbard
Leonidas Hubbard
Leonidas Hubbard was a journalist and adventurer.He was born in Michigan and studied at the University of Michigan , choosing journalism as a career. In 1901 he married Mina Adelaine Benson, a woman two years senior and at the time an assistant superintendent of a Staten Island hospital. They met...
a few years earlier. He described his journey up the Fraser River
Fraser River (Newfoundland and Labrador)
The Fraser River in northern Labrador flows west to east in geological trench. The gorge is narrow and deep. The upper watershed drains to Tasisuak Lake. Eastward the rift widens to shallow, brackish ponds where flow reverses with the flush of tide...
to access Indian House Lake on George River in the popular Through Trackless Labrador in 1911.
His reputation was such that former President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
, a fellow writer, explorer and hunter, wrote to him, commending him on his latest book, which he described as the best that season, and asking to meet him.
Further writing
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 HoodRobin Hood
Robin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men". Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes....
-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
Apollo Theatre
The Apollo Theatre is a Grade II listed West End theatre, on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. Designed by architect Lewin Sharp for owner Henry Lowenfield, and the fourth legitimate theatre to be constructed on the street, its doors opened on 21 February 1901 with the American...
, London. In 1925, the book was reworked as a Zorro
Zorro
Zorro is a fictional character created in 1919 by New York-based pulp writer Johnston McCulley. The character has been featured in numerous books, films, television series, and other media....
vehicle by screenwriters Jack Cunningham
Jack Cunningham (screenwriter)
Jack Cunningham was an American screenwriter. He wrote for 132 motion pictures between 1913 and 1939.He was born in Ionia, Iowa, and died from a cerebral hemorrhage in Santa Monica, California.-Selected filmography:...
and Lotta Woods
Lotta Woods
Lotta Woods , was an American screenwriter. She wrote 10 films between the years 1921 and 1929.She was born in Pennsylvania and died in Los Angeles County, California. Her real name was Charlotte Nelson....
; the United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
silent film Don Q, Son of Zorro
Don Q, Son of Zorro
Don Q, Son of Zorro is the 1925 sequel to the 1920 silent film The Mark of Zorro. It was loosely based upon the 1909 novel Don Q.'s Love Story, written by the mother-and-son duo Kate and Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard. The story was reworked in 1925 into a vehicle for the Johnston McCulley character Zorro...
was produced by Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....
, who also starred as its lead character. The New York Times rated the film one of its top ten movies of the year.
In 1913, writing on his own, Hesketh-Prichard created the crime-fighting figure "November Joe", a hunter and backwoodsman from the Canadian wilderness. It was broadcast as a radio play by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
on 23 September 1970.
Despite his reputation as a hunter, he campaigned to end the clubbing of Grey Seals around the coast. Aided by his friend Charles Lyell MP
Charles Henry Lyell
The Hon. Charles Henry Lyell was a British politician and Liberal Member of Parliament who died in the First World War.He was born in 1875, the only son of Leonard Lyell, and was educated at Eton and New College, Oxford...
, he was successful in seeing the Grey Seals (Protection) Act passed unopposed in 1914, Britain's first legal protection for non-game mammals. His article "Slaughtered for Fashion" in the March 1914 Pearson's Magazine argued to protect birds from slaughter for their plumage for millinery.
Cricket
Hampshire County Cricket Club
Hampshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Hampshire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1863 as a successor to the Hampshire county cricket teams and has played at the Antelope Ground from then until 1885, before moving to the County Ground where it...
, London County
London County Cricket Club
London County Cricket Club was a short-lived cricket club founded by the Crystal Palace Company. In 1898 they invited WG Grace to help them form a first-class cricket club. Grace accepted the offer and became the club's secretary, manager and captain. As a result, he severed his connection with...
, and Marylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...
. A right-arm fast bowler, he made his début in the first class game
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
when he played for Hampshire against Somerset
Somerset County Cricket Club
Somerset County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Somerset...
in the 1900 County Championship
County Championship
The County Championship is the domestic first-class cricket competition in England and Wales...
. He was not however a strong batsman, and would typically play in the tail of the batting order
Batting order (cricket)
In cricket, the batting order is the sequence in which batsmen play through their team's innings, there always being two batsmen taking part at any one time...
. He joined the short-lived London County in 1902, where he was a teammate of W. G. Grace
W. G. Grace
William Gilbert Grace, MRCS, LRCP was an English amateur cricketer who is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest players of all time, having a special significance in terms of his importance to the development of the sport...
. In 1903 he played his first of several games for The Gentlemen v The Players
Gentlemen v Players
The Gentlemen v Players game was a first-class cricket match that was generally played on an annual basis between one team consisting of amateurs and one of professionals . The first two games took place in 1806 but the fixture was not revived until 1819. It was more or less annual thereafter...
at Lords
Lord's Cricket Ground
Lord's Cricket Ground is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board , the European Cricket Council and, until August 2005, the...
. He would be selected for The Gentleman three years in succession. In 1904, he joined the MCC
Marylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...
, and took part in Lord Brackley's XI's tour of the West Indies
Lord Brackley's XI cricket team in West Indies in 1904-05
Lord Brackley's XI was the fifth team of English cricketers to tour the West Indies, playing in the 1904-05 season. The team was captained by John Egerton, 4th Earl of Ellesmere and played a total of 20 matches between January and April 1905, of which ten are regarded as first class...
in the 1904/5 season. In 1907, he toured the United States with the MCC.
A tall man, he was able to use his height and reach to his advantage when bowling. In a first-class career that lasted from 1900 to 1913, he took 339 wickets for a total of 7,586 runs. A career best was 8/32 for Hampshire against Derbyshire in July 1905.
Military service
At the outbreak of the First World War, Hesketh-Prichard tried for a commission in the Black WatchBlack Watch
The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland is an infantry battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. The unit's traditional colours were retired in 2011 in a ceremony led by Queen Elizabeth II....
and Guards
Guards Division
The Guards Division is an administrative unit of the British Army responsible for the administration of the regiments of Foot Guards and the London Regiment.-Introduction:...
, but both turned him down because of his age, then 37. He was eventually successful obtaining a post as Assistant Press Officer at the War Office
War Office
The War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...
, and first sent to the front lines in France in February 1915 as an "eyewitness officer" in charge of war correspondent
War correspondent
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
s. By this time, open warfare on the front had ceased, and had stagnated into the trench warfare
Trench warfare
Trench warfare is a form of occupied fighting lines, consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are largely immune to the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery...
that characterised much of the conflict. He witnessed there the victims of gas attack
Chemical warfare
Chemical warfare involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons. This type of warfare is distinct from Nuclear warfare and Biological warfare, which together make up NBC, the military acronym for Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical...
.
Sniper
A sniper is a marksman who shoots targets from concealed positions or distances exceeding the capabilities of regular personnel. Snipers typically have specialized training and distinct high-precision rifles....
s. It was common for British regiment
Regiment
A regiment is a major tactical military unit, composed of variable numbers of batteries, squadrons or battalions, commanded by a colonel or lieutenant colonel...
s to lose five men a day to snipers; he learned that one battalion
Battalion
A battalion is a military unit of around 300–1,200 soldiers usually consisting of between two and seven companies and typically commanded by either a Lieutenant Colonel or a Colonel...
lost eighteen in a single day. The German snipers could not be located, leaving them free to continue shooting from their place of concealment. He was also dismayed by the poor quality of marksmanship amongst the British troops.
He set about improving the quality of marksmanship, calibrating and correcting the few telescopic sight
Telescopic sight
A telescopic sight, commonly called a scope, is a sighting device that is based on an optical refracting telescope. They are equipped with some form of graphic image pattern mounted in an optically appropriate position in their optical system to give an accurate aiming point...
s that the army already possessed. He borrowed more sights and hunting rifles from friends and famous hunters back home, and funded the acquisition of others from his own pocket, or donations he solicited. To investigate the quality of German armour plate, he retrieved a sample from a German trench. He discovered that their armour could only be penetrated by a heavy cartridge such as Jeffery 333
.333 Jeffery
The .333 Jeffery also known as the .333 Jeffery Rimless Nitro Express or as the .333 Rimless Nitro Express is a rimless bottlenecked cartridge. It was developed by the W.J...
, while British plate could be easily defeated by a much smaller gun such as a Mauser
Mauser
Mauser was a German arms manufacturer of a line of bolt-action rifles and pistols from the 1870s to 1995. Mauser designs were built for the German armed forces...
.
Innovations
He recognised German skill in constructing trench parapetParapet
A parapet is a wall-like barrier at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony or other structure. Where extending above a roof, it may simply be the portion of an exterior wall that continues above the line of the roof surface, or may be a continuation of a vertical feature beneath the roof such as a...
s: by making use of an irregular top and face to the parapet, and constructing it from material of varying composition, the presence of a sniper or an observer poking his head up became much less conspicuous. In contrast, British trench practice had been to give a military-straight neat edge to the parapet top, making any movement or protrusion immediately obvious.
An observer was vulnerable to an enemy sniper firing a bullet through his loophole, but Hesketh-Prichard devised a metal-armoured double loophole that would protect him. The front loophole was fixed, but the rear was housed in a metal shutter sliding in grooves. Only when the two loopholes were lined up—a twenty-to-one chance—could an enemy shoot between them.
Papier-mâché
Papier-mâché , alternatively, paper-mache, is a composite material consisting of paper pieces or pulp, sometimes reinforced with textiles, bound with an adhesive, such as glue, starch, or wallpaper paste....
head was raised above the parapet on a stick running in a groove on a fixed board. To increase the realism, a lit cigarette could be inserted into the dummy's mouth and be smoked by a soldier via a rubber tube. If the head was shot, it was dropped rapidly, simulating a casualty. The sniper's bullet would have made a hole in the front and back of the dummy's head. The head was then raised in the groove again, but lower than before by the vertical distance between the glasses of a trench periscope
Periscope
A periscope is an instrument for observation from a concealed position. In its simplest form it consists of a tube with mirrors at each end set parallel to each other at a 45-degree angle....
. If the lower glass of a periscope was placed before the front bullet hole, its upper glass would be at exactly the same height as the bullet had been. By looking through the rear hole in the head, through the front hole and up through the periscope, the soldier would be looking exactly along the line the bullet had taken, and so would be looking directly at the sniper, revealing his position.
Training snipers
Hesketh-Prichard was eventually successful in gaining official support for his campaign, and in August 1915 was given permission to proceed with formalised sniper training. By November of that year, his reputation was such that he was in high demand from many units. In December he was ordered on General AllenbyEdmund Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby
Field Marshal Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby GCB, GCMG, GCVO was a British soldier and administrator most famous for his role during the First World War, in which he led the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in the conquest of Palestine and Syria in 1917 and 1918.Allenby, nicknamed...
's request to the Third Army School of Instruction and was made a general staff officer with the rank of captain. He was Mentioned in Despatches on 1 January 1916.
In August 1916, he founded the First Army School of Sniping in the village of Linghem
Linghem
Linghem is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France.-Geography:Linghem is situated about northwest of Béthune and west of Lille, on the D90 road. The A26 autoroute forms the western border of the commune....
, Pas-de-Calais. Starting with a first class of only six, in time he was able to lecture to large numbers of soldiers from different Allied nations, proudly proclaiming in a letter that his school was turning out snipers at three times the rate of any such other school in the world. In October of that year he was awarded the Military Cross
Military Cross
The Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces; and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....
, the citation of which read: "For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He has instructed snipers in the trenches on many occasions, and in most dangerous Circumstances, with great skill and determination. He has, directly and indirectly, inflicted enormous casualties on the enemy." His friend George Gray, himself a champion shooter, told him that he had reduced sniping casualties from five a week per battalion to forty-four in three months in sixty battalions; by his reckoning, this meant that Hesketh-Prichard had saved over 3,500 lives. He was promoted to major in November 1916. By this time in the war, his contributions to sniping had been such that the former German superiority in the practice had now been reversed.
Later war years
Hesketh-Prichard was taken ill with an undetermined infection in late 1917 and was granted leave. His health remained poor for the rest of his life, and he spent much of it convalescing. It was during this period of leave that he learned that he had been awarded the Distinguished Service OrderDistinguished Service Order
The Distinguished Service Order is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat.Instituted on 6 September...
, for his work with the First Army School of Sniping, Observation, and Scouting. For his wartime work with the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps
Portuguese Expeditionary Corps
The Portuguese Expeditionary Corps was the main military force from Portugal that participated in the First World War. Portuguese neutrality ended in 1916 after the seizure of German merchant ships resulted in Germany declaring war...
, he was appointed a Commander of the Military Order of Avis
Order of Aviz
The Military Order of Aviz , previously to 1910 Royal Military Order of Aviz , previously to 1789 Order of Saint Benedict of Aviz , previously Knights of St. Benedict of Aviz or Friars of Santa Maria of Évora, is a Portuguese Order of Chivalry...
.
He continued to write and hunt when his health permitted him. In 1920, he wrote his account of his war time activities in the critically acclaimed Sniping in France (full-text available on Wikisource and as a PDF document), which is still referenced by modern authors on the subject. The following year he wrote Sport in Wildest Britain, in which he shared his experiences of bird shooting, particularly in the Outer Hebrides
Outer Hebrides
The Outer Hebrides also known as the Western Isles and the Long Island, is an island chain off the west coast of Scotland. The islands are geographically contiguous with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland...
.
Family life
In 1908, he married Lady Elizabeth Grimston, the daughter of James Grimston, 3rd Earl of VerulamJames Grimston, 3rd Earl of Verulam
James Walter Grimston, 3rd Earl of Verulam , known as Viscount Grimston from 1852 to 1895, was a British Conservative Party politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1892. He inherited his peerage in 1895.Grimston was the eldest son of James Walter Grimston, 2nd Earl of Verulam, and...
, whom he'd met through friends. They had three children: Michael (born 1909), Diana (1912) and Alfgar (1916). His son Alfgar Hesketh-Prichard was later recruited to the Special Operations Executive
Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive was a World War II organisation of the United Kingdom. It was officially formed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton on 22 July 1940, to conduct guerrilla warfare against the Axis powers and to instruct and aid local...
during the Second World War, where he became the first head of its Czech Section, training agents to conduct the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich , also known as The Hangman, was a high-ranking German Nazi official.He was SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
. He died on service in Austria in December 1944, for which he was posthumously awarded the MC
Military Cross
The Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces; and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....
.
Later years
In July 1919 Hesketh-Prichard was elected Chairman of the Society of AuthorsSociety of Authors
The Society of Authors is a trade union for professional writers that was founded in 1884 to protect the rights of writers and fight to retain those rights .It has counted amongst its members and presidents numerous notable writers and poets including Tennyson The Society of Authors (UK) is a...
, of which he had been a member for many years. Poor health forced him to resign in the following January.
Hesketh-Prichard died from sepsis
Sepsis
Sepsis is a potentially deadly medical condition that is characterized by a whole-body inflammatory state and the presence of a known or suspected infection. The body may develop this inflammatory response by the immune system to microbes in the blood, urine, lungs, skin, or other tissues...
on 14 June 1922, at the ancestral home of his wife
Old Gorhambury House
Old Gorhambury House located near St Albans, Hertfordshire, England is an Elizabethan mansion, built in 1563-8 by Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, and visited a number of times by Queen Elizabeth....
at Gorhambury, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, England. His obituarists ascribed this to an obscure form of blood poisoning brought on by gassing in the trenches during his war service. However, all of his ailments—fatigue, heart
Heart
The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...
–digestive
Digestion
Digestion is the mechanical and chemical breakdown of food into smaller components that are more easily absorbed into a blood stream, for instance. Digestion is a form of catabolism: a breakdown of large food molecules to smaller ones....
–neurological disorders, appendicitis
Appendicitis
Appendicitis is a condition characterized by inflammation of the appendix. It is classified as a medical emergency and many cases require removal of the inflamed appendix, either by laparotomy or laparoscopy. Untreated, mortality is high, mainly because of the risk of rupture leading to...
, cognitive problems, depression
Depression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...
, anxiety
Anxiety
Anxiety is a psychological and physiological state characterized by somatic, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components. The root meaning of the word anxiety is 'to vex or trouble'; in either presence or absence of psychological stress, anxiety can create feelings of fear, worry, uneasiness,...
—are recognized today as differential symptoms of malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
. Left untreated they sometimes lead to organ failure and death. His body was cremated and the ashes interred in the family vault at St Michael's Church
Church of St. Michael, St. Albans
St Michael's Church in St Albans is a parish church in the Church of England.-Background:It is, based upon the writing of Matthew Paris, believed to have been originally founded in AD948 by Abbot Ulsinus of St Albans...
, St Albans
St Albans
St Albans is a city in southern Hertfordshire, England, around north of central London, which forms the main urban area of the City and District of St Albans. It is a historic market town, and is now a sought-after dormitory town within the London commuter belt...
. His mother survived him for some years, dying in 1935. His wife Elizabeth, later becoming Woman of the Bedchamber
Woman of the Bedchamber
In the Royal Household of the United Kingdom the term Woman of the Bedchamber is used to describe a woman attending either a queen regnant or queen consort, in the role of Lady-in-Waiting...
to Queen Mary
Mary of Teck
Mary of Teck was the queen consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, as the wife of King-Emperor George V....
, lived until 1975.
His biography was written two years after his death by his friend Eric Parker, who encapsulated his many accomplishments within its title: Hesketh Prichard D.S.O., M.C.: Explorer, Naturalist, Cricketer, Author, Soldier.
External links
Cricket- Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard at cricketarchive.com
Works by Hesketh-Prichard
- Hunting camps in wood and wilderness, from Open LibraryOpen LibraryOpen Library is an online project intended to create “one web page for every book ever published”. Open Library is a project of the non-profit Internet Archive and has been funded in part by a grant from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation.-Books for the blind and...
- Karadac, count of Gersay, from Open LibraryOpen LibraryOpen Library is an online project intended to create “one web page for every book ever published”. Open Library is a project of the non-profit Internet Archive and has been funded in part by a grant from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation.-Books for the blind and...
- Through the Heart of Patagonia, from the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
- Through Trackless Labrador, from Open LibraryOpen LibraryOpen Library is an online project intended to create “one web page for every book ever published”. Open Library is a project of the non-profit Internet Archive and has been funded in part by a grant from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation.-Books for the blind and...
- Sniping in France, from Open LibraryOpen LibraryOpen Library is an online project intended to create “one web page for every book ever published”. Open Library is a project of the non-profit Internet Archive and has been funded in part by a grant from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation.-Books for the blind and...
- November Joe: Backwoods detective, online copy of the out of copyright text
- Flaxman Low, Occult Psychologist, Collected Stories, Project Gutenberg AustraliaProject Gutenberg AustraliaProject Gutenberg Australia, abbreviated as PGA, is an Internet site which was founded in 2001 by Colin Choat. The site hosts free ebooks or e-texts which are in the public domain in Australia. The ebooks have been prepared and submitted by volunteers...