Denys Finch Hatton
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The Honorable Denys George Finch Hatton (April 24, 1887 - May 14, 1931) was a big-game hunter, and the lover of Karen Blixen (also known by her pen name as Isak Dinesen), who wrote about him in her autobiographical book Out of Africa first published in 1937. In the book, his name is hyphenated Finch-Hatton.
Finch Hatton was a son of Henry Stormont Finch Hatton, 13th Earl of Winchilsea, by his wife, the former Anne Codrington, daughter of an Admiral of the British Fleet. The second son and third child, he was educated at Eton College, and Brasenose College, Oxford.
In 1911, after a trip to South Africa, he traveled to British East Africa, and bought some land on the western side of the Great Rift Valley near what is now Eldoret. He turned over the investment to a partner, and spent his time hunting.
Finch-Hatton was not known to have had any serious romances before he met Blixen. They were introduced at the Muthaiga Club on April 5, 1918. Soon afterwards he was assigned to military service in Egypt. On his return to Kenya after The Armistice, he developed a close friendship with Karen and her Swedish husband, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke. He left Africa again in 1920, but returned in 1922, investing in a land development company.
By this time, Karen Blixen had separated from her husband, and after their divorce in 1925, Finch-Hatton moved into her house and began leading safaris for wealthy sportsmen. Among his clients were Marshall Field and The Prince of Wales. According to author Mary Lovell, in 1930 Finch Hatton began a love affair with Beryl Markham, who was working as a race-horse trainer in Nairobi and the surrounding area. It was this relationship which inspired Markham to take up flying; later, she would gain fame as a pioneer flyer herself. Linda Donelson, a Blixen biographer, has surmised that Finch-Hatton was either homosexual or bisexual, citing his close relationship with British expatriate Berkeley Cole, a founder of Nairobi's Muthaiga Club.[1]
On the morning of 14 May 1931, Finch Hatton's Gypsy Moth took off from Voi airport, circled the airport twice, then plunged to the ground and burst into flames. Finch Hatton and his Kĩkũyũ servant Kamau were killed.
In accordance with his wishes, Finch-Hatton was buried in the Ngong Hills overlooking Nairobi National Park. Later, his brother erected an obelisk at the gravesite upon which he placed a simple brass plaque inscribed with Denys's name, the dates of his birth and death and an extract from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's narrative poem the Rime of the Ancient Mariner : "He prayeth well, who loveth well both man and bird and beast". According to "Out of Africa" there is a memorial plaque on a footbridge at Eton.
Denys Finch-Hatton was played by Robert Redford in the 1985 film Out of Africa.
[edit] References
- Too Close to the Sun: The Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton (2006) by Sara Wheeler
- Out of Isak Dinesen (1998) by Linda G. Donelson
- The Eton College Chronicle (May 21, 1931)
- Silence Will Speak (1977) by Errol Trzebinski
- The Lives of Beryl Markham (1993) by Errol Trzebinski
- Out of Africa (1937) by Isak Dinesen (Pseudonym of Karen Blixen)
