page_title: Frederick Selous
section_title: Death and legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Frederick Selous / Military career / Death and legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Grave of Frederick C. Selous
context_page_description: Frederick Courteney Selous, DSO, was a British explorer, officer, professional hunter, and conservationist, famous for his exploits in Southeast Africa. His real-life adventures inspired Sir Henry Rider Haggard to create the fictional Allan Quatermain character. Selous was also a friend of Theodore Roosevelt, Cecil Rhodes and Frederick Russell Burnham. He was pre-eminent within a select group of big game hunters that included Abel Chapman and Arthur Henry Neumann. He was the older brother of ornithologist and writer Edmund Selous.
context_section_description: On 4 January 1917, Selous was fighting in the bush war on the banks of the Rufiji River against German colonial Schutztruppen, outnumbered five-to-one. That morning, he was creeping forward in combat during a minor engagement when he raised his head and binoculars to locate the enemy. He was shot in the head by a German sniper and was killed instantly.
  Upon getting the news, American president Theodore Roosevelt (his close friend) wrote:
  He led a singularly adventurous and fascinating life, with just the right alternations between the wilderness and civilization. He helped spread the borders of his people's land. He added much to the sum of human knowledge and interest. He closed his life exactly as such a life ought to be closed, by dying in battle for his country while rendering her valiant and effective service. Who could wish a better life or a better death, or desire to leave a more honourable heritage to his family and his nation?
  He was buried under a tamarind tree near the place of his death, at Chokawali on the Rufigi River, in today's Selous Game Reserve, Tanzania, in a modest, flat stone grave with a simple bronze plaque reading: "CAPTAIN F.C. SELOUS D.S.O., 25TH ROYAL FUSILIERS, KILLED IN ACTION 4.1.17." Exactly a year later, on 4 January 1918, his son, Captain Frederick Hatherley Bruce MC, who was a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps, was killed in a flight over Menin Road, Belgium.
caption: Grave of Frederick C. Selous
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