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Name: HUNTER, William
Birth Date: 1853
Death Date: 16 Feb 1939, Nairobi
Profession: Artist
General Information:
EAS 17 Feb 1939 Grandfather of Mrs JA Whitworth. He joined the Navy when only 13. Eight years later he was sailing around the east coast of Africa engaged in the suppression of the slave trade and in supplying rations and other commodities to the army in the Abyssinian campaign. In 1930 he came to East Africa with his granddaughter. For 45 years before, he had been employed by the Rochdale Corporation, first as a gas meter inspector and later in the borough treasurer's office. Before serving with the Corporation he had been 11 years in the Navy. For several years after his arrival in Kenya Hunter had a very active life hunting and painting landscapes and pictures of native and animal life. He was a member of the Committee of the Kenya Arts and Craft Society and an associate of the Durban and Natal Academy of Art. Some of his paintings were exhibited in Durban and he also painted the pictures for the Kenya section of the Wembley Exhibition in 1924 When he revisited his home town in April 1926 he took with him over 175 of his paintings, a large number of which were exhibited in the Rochdale Art Gallery. Among them were Crescent Island, Naivasha, the summit of Mount Kenya, a scene in the Transvaal, views in City Park, hippopotami on Tana Rivber, the Arab quarter Nairobi, and Lake Nyassa. Another of his pictures was that of the head of a man-eating lion which killed four natives at Simba before it was shot. He was very fond of walking and his walks around town made him a very familiar figure. In his younger days he played the violin and cello. He was buried in Forest Road cemetery.