View entry
Name: HARTLEY, Lionel Hugh Holmes 'Rhino'
Nee: second son of Lionel James Hartley, brother of Tom Carr Hartley
Birth Date: 12 May 1914 Nairobi
Death Date: 1 Jan 1950 aeroplane accident near Voi
First Date: 1914
Last Date: 1950
Profession: Hunter
Married: 1.1936 Barbara Joyce Claudine Poy [?Poir] b. 1917 (div. 1942 and later m. Pierre Humblet); 2. 1942 Diana Rosalind Littleton b. 1919 Bantry, d. 1 Nov 1960 Arusha
Children: 1. Madeline (1936) 2. Lionel Alexander Holmes (8 May 1944 Nairobi-1998); Jennifer Elizabeth Holmes (7 Sep 1940)
Book Reference: Hartley, Barnes, Chandler, KGF
General Information:
St. Peter's Nyeri cemetery - Lionel H. Hartley, 1914-1950, from Diana, Lionel and Jenifer
Chandler - Lionel Hartley took a job as a professional hunter at Mac's Camp, a pub and hotel owned by former warden C.G. MacArthur. He was killed in a plane crash at Voi in 1950. ………… Hartley had also been a hunter at Treetops Hotel in the 1940s.
After Lionel's [Hartley] death, Diana took her two young children and stayed for a while with Carr Hartley's family at Rumuruti. There she met one of Carr's employees, an Austrian named Heini Demmer. Diana promptly went into an animal-trapping partnership with Demmer - to supply zoos - in direct competition with Carr Hartley, Diana's brother-in-law. Later still, Diana Hartley married Eddie Knodi, a chef at Nairobi's Norfolk Hotel.
Gray Leakey, his wife and his stepdaughter Diana Hartley were having supper at the farm, a band of 30 Mau Mau swarmed out of the woods. Mrs. Leakey rushed to the bathroom with her daughter and helped her escape through a trap door into an attic above. Mrs. Leakey herself was too weak to follow. When Diana emerged an hour later, her mother was lying dead on the lawn, cruelly slashed with Mau Mau knives. Gray Leakey was nowhere to be found.
Gazette 17 Feb 1953 probate
Lionel Hartley joined the Railways in 1933. He became a fireman and owing to the lack of trained staff at the time was allowed to drive much sooner than usual. After passing some exams he was given his driver’s ticket, at 19 years of age. Lionel was killed in a flying accident - at the time he was Honorary Game Warden at Tsavo. During his time at Mac's Inn, he ‘discovered’ Mzima Springs and opened the area up to tourism.