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Name: MacARTHUR, Cuthbert Geary 'Mac' OBE

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Nee: uncle of Gladys Winifred Arnold

Birth Date: 1896 Lucknow

Death Date: 27 Nov 1956 Mombasa

First Date: 1919

Last Date: 1956

Profession: Asst. Game Warden in 1939, appointed 1927. Originally Constable, EA Police 1919. Opened Mac's Inn

Area: Tsavo, Mtito Andei, Naivasha, 1925 Nairobi, 1922 Police Naivasha

Married: 1. In Mombasa 6 July 1927 Isobel Florence Mouncey Gilfillan b. 5 July 1903 Umzimkulu, Eastern Cape, S. Africa, d. 3 July 1932 Nairobi; 2. Doris Irene Crawley

Book Reference: Staff 39, Sundown, Tsavo, Rundgren, Elephant People, KAD, Red 25, Red 31, Hut, Red 22, Harmony, Nicholls, Dominion, Barnes, Chandler, Tom Lawrence

War Service: Hussars of the Line

General Information:

The Impossible Dream, by Ian Parker, p. 34He served with the CID and for many years was Kenya’s heavyweight boxing champion. As a policeman he had a reputation for being unorthodox but successful and was credited with keeping crime in Nairobi rewardingly low… Mac became the first Game Warden to apply himself to this traffc [rhino horn and ivory] and was greatly feared by the Arab and Somali dealers, whom he would approach disguised as an Indian trader, putting his Indian experience to good use.
Sundown - Suggested Tsavo's original boundaries. An ex-professional boxer, originally came to Kenya as a policeman, but had transferred to the Game Dept. to become one of the country's most outstanding wardens. Retired from the Game Dept. before Bill Woodley joined and opened 'Mac's Inn' at Mtito Andei.  
Tsavo - One man, C.G. MacArthur, a Senior Asst. Warden in the Game Dept. perhaps knew the area better than anyone else, having travelled there during the War years when he wandered on foot through the flat interminable bush, pausing at the occasional muddy waterhole to slake his thirst ......... After the War MacA. had retired from the Game Dept. and had established a professional hunting firm, known as Safariland.  [the second firm of that name]  
Elephant People - It was MacArthur who had suggested the original boundaries of the park to the 1939 Game Policy Committee, which had been given the responsibility of advising the Government on the areas to be selected for the proposed sanctuaries. The great strength of MacArthur’s argument for this particular area [Tsavo] was that it was legally occupied by practically no human inhabitants. The committee had accepted and recommended the boundaries he had urged, but the territory finally gazettes as the Tsavo national park was not only much smaller but circumscriber in a manner that seemed typical of the whole approach of the Administration to conservation in Kenya. First it had been deemed necessary to ensure that no part of it could ever be useful for any other purpose, and piece by piece had been lopped off as the case file had passed through various departments. No thought had been given to whether it could in fact support its faunal population; or to whether their seasonal migrations would take them out of its orbit of protection, as happened with some species; or even, for that matter, to the importance of natural boundaries, such as rivers and watersheds. The Sanctuary had finally been decided by drawing lines arbitrarily on the map, and MacArthur’s mobile eyebrows bristled with anger every time he discussed it!
MacArthur had hunted Wambua Mukula, probably the most famous of the wa-Kamba poachers, and once came face to face with him, pointing a drawn bow and arrow at him, and so was unable to arrest him. When Bill Woodley eventually caught him, there was a respectful handshake between MacArthur and Wambua at Mac’s Inn in Mtito Andei. MacArthur had long since retired by this stage.
Owner of Mac's Inn [begun 1948]- an aggressive-looking sexagenarian with a shock of grey hair. He had originally come out to Kenya as a policeman, but had transferred to the Game Dept. to become one of the country's outstanding game wardens. MacArthur was legendary.
Member of Lodge Harmony - Initiated 5/11/23, age 27, Kenya Police, Nairobi, died 28/11/56
Nicholls - (c. 1933) - The Game Department waged a campaign against poaching - four keepers and a few scouts managed to get convictions of an average of 550 ivory and rhino-horn poachers every year. Most were caught in the hinterland of the coast by C.G. MacArthur, a man who almost single-handedly destroyed the age-old hunting culture of the Wasanya people in the region.
Dominion - Game Department - Assistant Warden - 1930
Barnes - Mombasa Cemetery - Cuthbert Geary MacArthur, died 27 Nov 1956 age 62, European Hospital, Myocardial Failure
Gazette 12 Nov 1919 - Arrived on 1st Appointment - 3rd Class Police Constable - 2/11/1919
KAD 1922 - Police Constable, Naivasha
Gazette 2 Mar 1927, p. 238) On Feb 1927 He is appointed an Assistant in the Game Department on probation 
Gazette - Voters List 1936 - Nairobi South - Cuthbert Geary McArthur, Game Warden, Lenana Rd., and Doris Irene McArthur, married woman, c/o Game Dept.
Bird Forum website 220821 1938 He had a sub-species of Shelley's Francolin named after him Scleroptila shelleyi macarthuri Someren
Bird Forum website 220821 1939  He had a sub-species of White-starred Robin ssp. Pogonocichla stellata macarthuri Someren named after him.
OBE 1948
Helen Bradley (great-grandniece):After Isabel died Cuthbert married an Asian girl who was extremely beautiful, a widow with one son by a previous marriage. That doesn't sound like his second wife Doris Irene Crawley, and Doris isn't mentioned anywhere, so if family notes are right then maybe this was a third relationship. Cuthbert's parents were settled in India, and he had five brothers and three sisters but the notes don't mention any children of his own - of course he may have had children but lost touch with our part of the family.
 

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