J. H. Patterson

The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures (Dodo Press) J. H. Patterson

Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Patterson, DSO (1867-1947), known as J. H. Patterson, was an Anglo-Irish soldier, hunter, author and Zionist, best known for his book The Man-Eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures (1907), which details his experiences while building a railway in Kenya. Patterson was born in Forgney, Ballymahon, County Westmeath (now Longford), Ireland, in 1867. His father was Protestant and his mother was Roman Catholic. He joined the British Army at age seventeen, rose quickly through the ranks and eventually attained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Essex Yeomanry (he resigned his commission in 1911). In 1898, he was commissioned by the British East Africa Company to oversee the construction of a railway bridge over the Tsavo river in present-day Kenya and arrived at the site in March of that year. From 1907 until 1909, Patterson was Chief Game Warden in the East Africa Protectorate, an experience he recounts in his second book, In the Grip of Nyika (1909).