'Karamojo Bell'

The last of his kind, elephant hunter Captain Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell left an indelible mark on African hunting history, says Sir Johnny Scott

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CAPTAIN WALTER Dalrymple Maitland Bell - known as 'Karamojo Bell' – the soldier, decorated fighter pilot, international yachtsman, author, artist and arguably the most successful ivory hunter of his time, was born in 1880.

His father, Robert Bell, was a prosperous Scottish landowner, timber, coal and shale-oil merchant, and lived at Clifton Hall, an imposing Scots baronial mansion at Newbridge near Edinburgh. Bell’s mother died when he was two years old and his father four years later, leaving his education in the hands of his older brothers. After running away from several boarding schools, Bell was apprenticed to a firm of shipowners and at the age of 13 sailed 'before the mast' on a windjammer bound for Tasmania. From Tasmania he joined another ship to New Zealand and then one to Mombasa. It was there, aged 16, that he found a job hunting game for a survey party along the nascent Uganda Railway.