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Jock Of the Bushveld
THE LEGEND OF JOCK
Jock of the Bushveld was a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, whose courage and loyalty
to his pioneer owner is stuff of legends, as well as a full length feature film
based on Sir Percy Fitzpatrick's famous book.
This area of southern Kruger National Park in South Africa, in which Jock Safari
Lodge is situated, has long been associated with the Jock name, and Jock Safari
Lodge is a treasure-trove of memorabilia on the subject.Jock of the Bushveld, is
one of the greatest dog stories ever written.
From 1907 when it was first publicised it has never been out of print. Sir Percy
was born on the 24 July 1862 in King William’s Town. At the age of 21 he made
his way to the Eastern Transvaal (Mpumalanga) where he became a transport rider
and worked for six years. During these years he acquired his dog Jock.
Jock of the Bushveld is a true story, rich in episodes of hunting, real life
characters and adventures in the lowveld. The book is about Percy’s years as a
transport rider and ends in 1889 when tsetse fly infected all of his oxen and he
was ruined. Sir Percy gave Jock to a friend of his, who eventually gave the dog
to a trader. Jock was tragically killed at the trading store one night, when he
rushed out to attack a stray dog that was raiding the fowl run. Jock killed the
thief but was then shot by the trader who mistook him for the stray dog.
About the author: Sir James Percy FitzPatrickPolitician, author
and pioneer of the fruit industry. King William's Town 24.07.1862 -Amanzi (Uitenhage)
24.01.1931. He was the eldest son of James Coleman FitzPatrick, judge of the
Supreme Court of the Cape Colony, and Jenny FitzGerald, both from Ireland. Two
of judge FitzPatrick's sons were killed in action, Tom in the Matabele Rebellion
and George (serving with the Imperial Light Horse) in the Second Anglo-Boer War.
Percy was educated at Downside Abbey, near Bath (England), and later at St.
Aidan's College, Grahamstown. On his father's death in 1880 he left college in
order to support his mother and her family.
In 1884 he went to the Eastern Transvaal gold-fields where he worked as store
man, prospector's hand and journalist, and as transport-rider from Lourenco
Marques by ox-wagon to Lydenburg and Barberton. At the latter place he became
editor of the Gold Fields News. His adventures during the pioneering days in the
Bushveld are vividly described in Jock of the Bushveld, now a South African
classic.
He used to recount his experiences with his dog Jock at bedtime to his four
children. Rudyard Kipling, and intimate friend, took part in these story-telling
evenings and persuaded FitzPatrick to collect the stories in book form. When he
had done this the author searched for a suitable artist to illustrate the book,
came across Edmund Caldwell, and brought him to South Africa to see the Bushveld
and make the drawings on the spot.
The book appeared in 1907 and had an enthusiastic reception, being reprinted
four times in that year; it has remained a special favourite in South Africa and
has been widely read abroad. It has appeared in several forms and languages,
among them Afrikaans, Dutch, French, Xhosa and Zulu, and between 1907 and 1962
ran through almost 100 impressions.(Niven, C. Standard Encyclopaedia of Southern
Africa. 1971)
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