View entry
Name: SIMSON, Leslie
Birth Date: 1895 Alameda County, California
First Date: 1922
Profession: Mining engineer. Hunter
Area: Nairobi
Book Reference: Norden, KAD, Into Africa, Chandler
General Information:
Into Africa - scored enormous lion kills by driving within 25 yards of his quarry.
Chandler - a successful American mining engineer stationed in Johannesburg. Late in life he took up big-game hunting, killing his first lion at about age 50. A quiet, reserved man he arrived in East Africa in 1920, coming in on the first Model A Ford to be seen in the region. Simpson hunted Kenya and Tanganyika throughout the 1920s, killing up to 300 lion with his own rifle in fair-chase conditions, not including hunts he took part in as a professional. Around 1927 he had a hunting camp on the fringe of the Serengeti in Tanganyika, from which he guided clients like Paul Selby, a skilled wildlife photographer from Johannesburg. Simpson was a wealthy man, rich enough to donate "African Halls" of taxidermy to both the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and the Los Angeles Museum. He personally hunted each of the animals exhibited in these halls, and arranged for their preparation and shipment at his own expense.
KAD 1922 - Standard Bank of S.A.
Norden - 1923 - on train to Gilgil met Leslie Simson, a mining engineer - Californian still, in spite of his 20 years in Africa.