Jim Corbett

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For other people with the same name, see James Corbett.

Jim Corbett
CIE VD
Born
Edward James Corbett

(1875-07-25)25 July 1875
Nainital, North-Western Provinces, British India
Died19 April 1955(1955-04-19) (aged 79)
Nyeri, Colony of Kenya
Resting placeSaint Peter's Cemetery, Nyeri, Kenya
NationalityBritish
Occupations

Edward James Corbett CIE VD (25 July 1875 – 19 April 1955) was an Indian-born British hunter, tracker, naturalist and author. He was frequently called upon by the Government of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh to kill man-eating tigers and leopards that were attacking people in the nearby villages of the Kumaon and Garhwal Divisions. He recounted his hunts and experiences in books like Man-Eaters of Kumaon, which enjoyed critical acclaim and commercial success. He was also an avid photographer and spoke out for the need to protect India's wildlife from extermination.

Corbett House at Corbett Museum, Kaladhungi, Kumaon

Ancestry and early life[edit]

The Corbetts descended from several families who had emigrated from the British Isles to the Indian subcontinent over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries. His paternal grandparents Joseph and Harriet Corbett, having eloped together from a monastery and a nunnery in Belfast, had arrived in India on 7 February 1815.[1] They had nine children; the sixth, Christopher William, was born at Meerut in 1822, and followed his father into the army, where he served as a medical officer. He married Mary Anne Morrow in December 1845, and they had three children before her early death. Surviving the Indian Mutiny of 1857, he retired from military service and married Mary Jane Doyle née Prussia, a 22-year-old widow of Anglo-Irish descent, in 1859. She had had four children with Dr. Charles James Doyle of Agra, who had been killed in the rebellion.[2]

In 1862, Christopher William was appointed the postmaster of Naini Tal, a thriving hill station in northern India which had been untouched by the Mutiny. There, he and Mary Jane had nine children, and additionally raised four children of a deceased sister.[3] As Christopher William's salary was not large enough to support so many people, they supplemented their income through shrewd property investments, which Mary Jane was especially skilled at—she in effect became the first estate agent in Naini Tal, a valuable position in the rapidly-expanding town.[4] Through his social connections and friendship with Henry Ramsay, the commissioner of the Kumaon division, Christopher William was additionally able to acquire a plot of land in the southern plains near Kaladhungi, on which he built a winter residence he named Arundel.[5]

Edward James Corbett, the eighth and penultimate child of Christopher William and Mary Jane, was born on 25 July 1875 in Naini Tal. His early childhood years were privileged, and he was cared for by his mother, his elder sisters, and local servants; from the latter, he picked up the local languages, the basics of Hindu practices and philosophy, and some of their superstitions.[6] However, the family soon suffered two misfortunes: first, a large landslide on 18 September 1880 which killed 151 people additionally ruined several of the Corbett's property investments; and second, Christopher William, who had retired from postmastership in 1978, died on 21 April 1881 after suffering heart problems.[7] Mary Jane built a home on the opposite side of Naini Tal lake to the landslide; named Gurney House, it would be Jim Corbett's home for most of his life.[8]

Jim spent much of his childhood exploring the jungles around Gurney House; from these explorations, and from willing adults such as his eldest brother Tom, and a nearby headman named Kunwar Singh, he gained intimate knowledge of the habits of the local wildlife. He also began hunting, first with projectile weapons such as a catapult and a pellet bow, until being gifted an old muzzle-loading shotgun at the age of eight. With these weapons, he grew more skilled at hunting and tracking animals.[9] After surviving a near-fatal bout of pneumonia at the age of six, he began his formal education in Naini Tal at Oak Openings School; there, training with the local cadet company, the ten-year-old Corbett's shooting impressed a group of dignitaries including the future Field Marshal Earl Roberts enough that he was granted a loan of a military-specification Martini-Henry rifle.[10] Not long afterwards, he shot his first big cat—a leopard—with this rifle.[11]

Although Corbett soon became very proficient as a young hunter, as a student, first at Oak Openings and then at the Diocesian Boys' School, he was fairly average. Although he wanted to become an engineer, that required further education and money which the family did not have, as Tom had now married and was supporting his own family. He also knew that it would be his responsibility to look after his mother and two sisters in later years. In turn they, especially Maggie, one year older than Jim, were quite devoted to him.[12] Leaving home at the age of seventeen, he took his first job as a temporary fuel inspector in Bihar, with a salary of one hundred rupees per month.[13]

Hunting tigers and leopards[edit]

Corbett with the slain Bachelor of Powalgarh, 1930

During his life, Corbett tracked and shot several leopards and tigers; about a dozen were well documented man-eaters. Corbett provided estimates of human casualties in his books, including Man-Eaters of Kumaon, The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag, and The Temple Tiger and More Man-Eaters of Kumaon. Calculating the totals from these accounts, these big cats had killed more than 1,200 men, women, and children, according to Corbett. There are some discrepancies in the official human death tolls that the British and Indian governments have on record and Corbett's estimates.

The first designated man-eating tiger he killed, the Champawat Tiger, was responsible for an estimated 436 documented deaths.[14] Though most of his kills were tigers, Corbett successfully killed at least two man-eating leopards. The first was the Panar Leopard in 1910, which allegedly killed 400 people. The second was the man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag in 1926, which terrorized the pilgrims journeying to the holy Hindu shrines Kedarnath and Badrinath for more than eight years, and was said to be responsible for more than 126 deaths.

Other notable man-eaters he killed were the Talla-Des man-eater, the Mohan man-eater, the Thak man-eater, the Muktesar man-eater and the Chowgarh tigress.

Analysis of carcasses, skulls, and preserved remains show that most of the man-eaters were suffering from disease or wounds, such as porcupine quills embedded deep in the skin or gunshot wounds that had not healed, like that of the Muktesar Man-Eater. The Thak man-eating tigress, when skinned by Corbett, revealed two old gunshot wounds; one in her shoulder had become septic, and could have been the reason for the tigress's having turned man-eater, Corbett suggested. In the foreword of Man Eaters of Kumaon, Corbett writes:

The wound that has caused a particular tiger to take to man-eating might be the result of a carelessly fired shot and failure to follow up and recover the wounded animal or be the result of the tiger having lost his temper while killing a porcupine

Corbett preferred to hunt alone and on foot when pursuing dangerous game. He often hunted with Robin, a small dog he wrote about in Man-Eaters of Kumaon.[15]

Gurney House, Nainital

Corbett bought his first camera in the late 1920s and—inspired by his friend Frederick Walter Champion—started to record tigers on cine film.[15] Although he had an intimate knowledge of the jungle, it was a demanding task to obtain good pictures, as the animals were exceedingly shy. Together with Champion, he played a key role in establishing India's first national park in the Kumaon Hills, the Hailey National Park, initially named after Lord Hailey. The park was renamed in Corbett's honour in 1957.[16]

Jim also spent a short time in Chotti Haldwani, a village he had adopted and which came to be known as Corbett's Village. Corbett and the villagers built a wall around the village in 1925 to keep wild animals out of the premises. As of 2018 the wall still stands, and according to villagers has prevented wild animal attacks on villagers since it was built.[17]

Retirement in Kenya[edit]

After 1947, Corbett and his sister Maggie retired to Nyeri, Kenya,[16] where he lived in the cottage 'Paxtu' in the grounds of the Hotel Outspan, which had originally been built for his friend Lord Baden-Powell.[18]

Treetops Hotel, rebuilt in 1957 after the original structure was burned down in 1954.

He continued to write and sound the alarm about the declining numbers of wild cats and other wildlife. Corbett was at the Treetops, a hut built on the branches of a giant ficus tree, as the bodyguard of Princess Elizabeth when she stayed there on 5–6 February 1952. That night, her father, King George VI died, and Elizabeth ascended to the throne. Corbett wrote in the hotel's visitors' register:

For the first time in the history of the world, a young girl climbed into a tree one day a Princess, and after having what she described as her most thrilling experience, she climbed down from the tree the next day a Queen—God bless her.

Corbett died of a heart attack a few days after he finished his sixth book, Tree Tops, and was buried at St. Peter's Anglican Church in Nyeri. His memories were kept intact in the form of the meeting place Moti House, which Corbett had built for his friend Moti Singh, and the Corbett Wall, a long wall (approximately 7.2 km (4.5 mi)) built around the village to protect crops from wild animals.

Man-eaters of Kumaon was a great success in India, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the first edition of the American Book-of-the-Month Club being 250,000 copies. It was later translated into 27 languages. Corbett's fourth book, Jungle Lore, is considered his autobiography.

The Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand, India was renamed in his honour in 1957. He had played a key role in establishing this protected area in the 1930s.

In 1968, one of the five remaining subspecies of tigers was named after him: Panthera tigris corbetti, the Indochinese tiger, also called Corbett's tiger.

In 1994 and 2002, the long-neglected graves of Corbett and his sister (both in Kenya) were repaired and restored by Jerry A. Jaleel, founder and director of the Jim Corbett Foundation.[19]

Personal life[edit]

Corbett remained unmarried in life.

Hollywood movie[edit]

In 1948, in the wake of Man-Eaters of Kumaon's success, a Hollywood film, Man-Eater of Kumaon, was made, directed by Byron Haskin and starring Sabu, Wendell Corey and Joe Page. The film did not follow any of Corbett's stories; a new story was invented. The film was a flop, although some interesting footage of the tiger was filmed. Corbett is known to have said that "the best actor was the tiger".[20] 'Corbett Legacy' was produced by the Uttarakhand Forest Department and directed by Bedi Brothers which carried original footage shot by Corbett.[citation needed]

Other adaptations[edit]

In 1986, the BBC produced a docudrama titled Man-Eaters of Kumaon with Frederick Treves in the role of Corbett. An IMAX movie India: Kingdom of the Tiger, based on Corbett's books, was made in 2002 starring Christopher Heyerdahl as Corbett. A TV movie based on The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag starring Jason Flemyng was made in 2005.[citation needed]


Honours[edit]

Corbett received the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal in the 1928 New Year Honours.[21] He was made a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire in the King's 1946 Birthday Honours.[22] Corbett was honored the title of India's first national park, Jim Corbett National Park.

  • A reserve area known as Hailey National Park covering 323.75 km2 (125.00 sq mi) was created in 1936 when Sir Malcolm Hailey was the Governor of United Provinces; and Asia's first national park came into existence. The reserve was renamed in 1954–55 as Ramganga National Park and was again renamed in 1955–56 as Jim Corbett National Park.
  • The Indochinese tiger was named after Corbett in 1968 by Vratislav Mazak who was the first to describe the new subspecies of the tiger living in Southeast Asia
  • Stephen Alter's In the Jungles of the Night: A Novel about Jim Corbett (2016) is a fictional account of Corbett's life.

Books[edit]

  • Jungle Stories. Privately published in 1935 (only 100 copies)
  • Man-Eaters of Kumaon. Oxford University Press, Bombay 1944
  • The Man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag. Oxford University Press, 1948
  • My India. Oxford University Press, 1952
  • Jungle Lore. Oxford University Press, 1953
  • The Temple Tiger and More Man-eaters of Kumaon. Oxford University Press, 1954
  • Tree Tops. Oxford University Press, 1955 (short 30-page novella)
  • Jim Corbett's India – Selections by R. E. Hawkins. Oxford University Press, 1978
  • My Kumaon: Uncollected Writings. Oxford University Press, 2012

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Booth 1986, pp. 16–18.
  2. ^ Booth 1986, pp. 16–20.
  3. ^ Booth 1986, pp. 20–23.
  4. ^ Booth 1986, pp. 27–29.
  5. ^ Booth 1986, pp. 23–24.
  6. ^ Booth 1986, pp. 26, 29–32.
  7. ^ Booth 1986, pp. 32–35.
  8. ^ Booth 1986, pp. 35–36.
  9. ^ Booth 1986, chapters 3–5.
  10. ^ Booth 1986, pp. 45, 55–59.
  11. ^ Booth 1986, pp. 61–63.
  12. ^ Booth 1986, pp. 27, 67–68.
  13. ^ Booth 1986, pp. 68–69.
  14. ^ Tiger and leopard attacks in Nepal Archived 24 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine BBC News (11 July 2012)
  15. ^ a b Rangarajan, M. (2006) India's Wildlife History: An Introduction Archived 12 May 2023 at the Wayback Machine. Permanent Black and Ranthambore Foundation, Delhi. ISBN 81-7824-140-4.
  16. ^ a b Beolens, B.; Watkins, M.; Grayson, M. (2009). The Eponym Dictionary of Mammals. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 86. ISBN 978-0-8018-9304-9.
  17. ^ "In this Nainital village, Corbett's Great Wall stands between villagers, tigers". 18 February 2018. Archived from the original on 31 October 2018. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
  18. ^ "The day Princess Elizabeth became Queen". Guardian. Daily Telegraph. 8 January 2012. Archived from the original on 9 September 2022. Retrieved 9 July 2019.
  19. ^ Jaleel, J.A. (2009) The Jim Corbett Foundation, Canada[permanent dead link]
  20. ^ Booth 1986, p. 230.
  21. ^ "No. 33343". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 December 1927. p. 7.
  22. ^ "No. 37598". The London Gazette (Supplement). 4 June 1946. p. 2763.

Sources[edit]

External links[edit]

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