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Name: HEWLETT, Joseph Raymond Holway 'Ray' (Capt.)

Birth Date: 11 Feb 1891 Taunton [14 Feb 1894 on S. African death cert.]

Death Date: 11 Dec 1976 Cape Town, South Africa

First Date: 1926

Profession: An experienced hunter, who had accompanied the Prince of Wales on some of his hunting trips. Game warden - first warden of Serengeti

Married: In Tanganyika 5 Oct 1933 Thea McFarlane Dick b. 1913

Children: Josephine Patterson (Goble) (1935); Richard Holway (1939); two others

Book Reference: White African, Red 31, Hut, Joelson, Chandler, Kinloch

War Service: West Sussex Yeomanry, RFC in WW1, KAR in WW2

School: Taunton Boys School

General Information:

Joelson - Notes in proof copy of 'Eastern Africa Today' - newspaper cutting - photo of The Cross of Sacrifice at Voi, taken by J.R.H. Hewlett.

Chandler - J.R.H. 'Ray' Hewlett - Major Hewlett was a professional hunter who was one of the first to join the Tanganyika Game Department, taking over the Serengeti when it was still a reserve. He backed up Denys Finch Hatton and Bror Blixen on the southern leg of the 1930 "Royal" safari, and helped Finch Hatton affix a postage stamp on a sleeping rhino for the Prince of Wales's amusement. Hewlett was the first warden for the Serengeti when it achieved national park status in 1950.

Red 31 has J.R.H. Hewlett, Voi

Hut the same

Kinloch - Served with the West Somerset Yeomanry and the RFC from 1914-18 in many active theatres of WW1, Ray had gone to India with the RAF and between 1919 and 1926 had fought with the Indian Army in the Second Afghan War and in a number of tribal insurrections on the NW Frontier. Always keen on wildlife and shikar (hunting), he then became a professional hunter in EA until 1933 when he joined the Tanganyika Game Dept. as a game warden.

On the outbreak of hostilities in 1939, he joined the armed forces and served with the KAR and RASC in the EA campaign on Kenya's Northern Frontier and in Italian and British Somaliland, Abyssinia and Eritrea until 1945 when he returned to the Tanganyika Game Dept.

In 1947, at last able to take some hard-earned and long overdue home leave, he made his way back to the place of his birth - Taunton, in Somerset. His brother was a prominent Rotarian and asked him to talk at a Rotary lunch in Taunton ..... criticised EA Govts. etc in round terms ......... meeting reported in press - national news .... stream of letters to the papers! ..... in 1950 he became the first Warden of Serengeti National Park.
See https://rayhewlett.org/references:Ray Hewlett 1891-1976: Soldier, Hunter, Conservationist & First Warden of the Serengeti National Park 1952-56 A photomemoir compiled by his son, Richard Hewlett, Cape Town 2016
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