Aviation pioneer and big game safari leader, Denys Finch Hatton
was the quintessential Edwardian gentleman living in the
romanticized era of large hats, garden parties and African
safaris that occurred between Queen Victoria’s death and World
War I. Finch-Hatton is best remembered by his portrayal in Isak
Dinesen’s book, Out of Africa, and by his connection with Beryl
Markham, the first woman to fly east to west across the Atlantic
Ocean. An aristocrat (his father was the 13th earl of
Winchilsea) and educated at all the right schools (Eton and
Brasenose College, Oxford) Finch-Hatton moved to British East
Africa at the age of 24 and began indulging his love of big game
hunting. Later on, he would parley this experience into acting
as a professional guide for wealthy big game hunters. Yet
safaris weren’t the only notable adventures to be had. Aviation
was finally starting to come into its own after WWI and by 1929,
it was estimated that out of every 100 airplanes owned in Great
Britain, the majority of them wer