Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard

Major Hesketh Vernon Prichard, later Hesketh-Prichard (17 November 1876 – 14 June 1922) was an explorer, adventurer, writer, big-game hunter, marksman, and cricketer who contributed 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. He also explored territory never seen before by a European, 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. Like other turn-of-the-century hunters such as Teddy Roosevelt, he was an active campaigner for animal welfare and succeeded in seeing legal measures introduced for their protection. Early life Hesketh-Prichard was born an only child on 17 November 1876 in Jhansi, North-Western Provinces, 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. Fast right hand with a good break back on a bowler's wicket." He was invited to play for Scotland against South Africa, but declined as he would have been unavailable to play against Fettes' rival Loretto School. After school, he studied law privately in Horsham, West Sussex. He passed the preliminary exam, though he would never practise as a solicitor.