Camp Forktail Creek - Jim Corbett

The Corbetts rented a house near the treasury building on the outskirts of Malli Tal Bazaar where they stayed until 1875 when they moved to a house they had had built on Alma. Soon Christopher William Corbett was granted ten acres of land on the edge of the plain below, just outside the village of Choti Haldwani at a place called Kaladhungi, 15 miles away from Nainital. Here he built a substantial house which he named Arundel, for his family to live when Nainital got too cold.

Jim studied at the Oak Openings School, later renamed Philander Smith College, and Diocese boys school (later renamed Sherwood College) in Nainital. From a very young age, Jim was fascinated by the forests and the wildlife around his home in Kaladhungi. He learned to identify most animals and birds by their calls and over time, became a good tracker and hunter.

He grew up to be a tall, slim, attractive blue-eyed man with exceptional eyesight, hearing and powers of observation, and was known for his modesty, kindness and generosity, and loved by all. At 19, Corbett quit school and began working for the Bengal and North Western Railway, initially as a fuel inspector at Manakpur in the Punjab, and subsequently as a contractor for the trans-shipment of goods across the Ganges at Mokameh Ghat in Bihar.

Later, Jim helped to raise a force of over 5,000 from Kumaon during a recruitment campaign in the Great War, and with himself as Captain took 500 of them to France in 1917. He returned with all but one in the following year. These he resettled in their Kumaon villages. With his usual generosity he gave his war bonus to build a soldiers' canteen. Thereafter, he saw fighting in the Third Afghan War, and in the Waziristan campaign serving as a Major from 1919 to 1921.

In about 1920, at the age of 45, he settled down at Nainital to look after his mother, his sister Maggie, and his step-sister Mary Doyle. A bequest in a will left him a house at Nainital and this allowed him to leave the railway. He was now able to give all his time to the people of Kumaon and their welfare.

Corbett the Hunter

Corbett’s exceptional skills in jungle craft are stuff of legend. He preferred to hunt alone and on foot, often at great personal risk to himself. Sometimes he took along his little dog Robin, and he was companion enough for Corbett.

It had been documented that between 1907 and 1938, Corbett tracked and shot 19 tigers and 14 leopards - all man eaters. These predators had killed more than 1,200 men, women and children. The first tiger he killed in Champawat, was alone responsible for 436 documented deaths. He also shot the Panar Leopard, which allegedly killed 400 people. One of his most famous kills was that of the man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag, which terrorised the pilgrims to the holy Hindu shrines Kedarnath and Badrinath for more than ten years.

After years of having tracked and hunted them on foot, Corbett became greatly concerned about the welfare of these big cats. Each time he killed a man eater, he noted why it had resorted to preying upon easier targets like humans. Usually he found evidence of decaying teeth, lameness or old age which made it difficult for the animal to prey on targets more agile than slow footed humans.

Corbett the Conservationist

At some undetermined date, Corbett resolved never again to shoot an animal except for food or if it was 'a dangerous' beat. In the early 1930's (he told Reverend A.G Atkins, pastor of the Union Church at Nainital) that having taken three officers out for a duck-shoot, he was sickened by the senseless slaughter of 300 birds.

His courage and patience is proved by the amount of film which he exposed in close proximity to the animals he photographed. He was strong and fit and able to endure hardship. For several months he went out daily and waited for a tiger to appear and obtained 'a long sequence of six superb specimens, of which the nearest was eight and the farthest thirty feet from his camera'. Now deposited in the British Museum they are unusual and remarkable records of Indian wild life.

He was a pioneer conservationist and used to lecture in local schools and societies to stimulate awareness of the natural beauty surrounding them and the need to conserve forests and their wildlife. His fluency in animal languages was demonstrated to more critical audiences when he used them to call up a man-eater or to drown the whirr of his camera when filming tigers.

Corbett the Author

It was after retiring to Nyeri (Kenya) in 1947 with his sister Maggie that Corbett wrote most of his books. Maggie and he sat together night after night before their wood fire, he at his typewriter and she brewing the after-dinner cup of tea. She said of him: 'He worked very hard; did his own typing, all with one finger, and made four copies of each book - three for the publishers, London, New York and Bombay, and the fourth copy for ourselves, known as 'The Home Copy'. He was very neat and if there was even one mistake on a page, he would scrap the page and type it all over again. He always wanted a sentence to read 'smoothly' and would take infinite pains in making it do so'.

Jim Corbett the author became famous after publishing Man-eaters of Kumaon (dedicated to 'the gallant soldiers, sailors and airmen of the United Nations who during this war have lost their sight in the service of their country'). The book was chosen by book clubs in England and America, the first printing of the American Book-of-the-month Club being 250,000. It was also issued as a Talking Book for the Blind and translated into at least fourteen European languages (Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Serbo-Croat, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish), eleven Indian languages (Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Sindhi, Sinhalise, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu), Afrikaans and Japanese. All the royalties on the first edition went to St Dunstan's Hostel for Indian soldiers blinded in the war that was still being fought.

Corbett’s Death

In Nyeri, Maggie and Jim Corbett occupied the house Lord Baden-Powell had built, lived and died in. Much of his time was spent filming wild life and to writing and he was made Honorary Officer, Royal National Parks of Kenya and an Honorary Assistant Game Warden. Soon after his arrival in Nyeri Jim founded a Wild Life Preservation Society and became its Honorary Secretary.

This is where Jim Corbett died, on 19 April 1955, and was buried in St Peter's churchyard, the same cemetery as Baden-Powell.

Although he died in Kenya, faraway from his beloved jungles, they say his soul never really left India. So watch out whilst deep in the jungle - for you too may see a white gent with a bushy mustache, sola topee upon his head and his trusty rifle slung across his back, whistling a tuneless tune to his little dog… Jim Corbett may have long gone, but the legend of ‘Carpet Sahib’ is alive and well in the hearts of the people in his beloved jungle.

Jim Corbett’s Books (published by Oxford)

1. Man-eaters of Kumaon
2. The Man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag
3. My India
4. Jungle Lore
5. Temple Tigers & More Man-eaters of Kumaon
6. Tree Tops
7. Jim Corbett's India

Bibliography and References

- Dictionary of National Biography: Who Was Who 1951-1960
- Carpet Sahib, A Life of Jim Corbett by Martin Booth
- Jim Corbett's India, Stories selected by R. E. Hawkins.
- Jim Corbett of Kumaon by D. C. Kala
- Recollections of Peter Smith of Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex who once lived at Naini Tal where his father taught at Philander Smith College.

Some articles and contents for publishing on this website were extracted from the The Corbett Study Group and hence credits were given to the origin. Copyright of the same belongs to J. C. Noble unless otherwise stated. If they are published on another website, used in any publication or are printed or copied in any form, credit must be given to the source.