David Rattray (historian)

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David Gray Rattray (born September 6, 1958 in Johannesburg , † January 26, 2007 in Rorke's Drift , KwaZulu-Natal , South Africa) was a South African historian who was particularly concerned with the history of the Zulu War .

Life

David Rattray was born in 1958 near Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa, to the lawyer Peter Rattray and his wife Gillian, a well-known artist and writer. Peter Rattray was an avid amateur historian and young David often went with him when he went on hikes around the family's small holiday lodge in Fugitives' Drift (near Rorke's Drift, about 150 km north of Pietermaritzburg and Durban ) wrote down the oral traditions of the ancestral Zulu population. The fathers and grandfathers of many of those questioned had fought against the troops of the British colonial power in the Zulu War of 1879 in the battles at Isandhlwana , at Rorke's Drift, or Ulundi .

After school, David Rattray did not turn to history but to entomology , studying this subject at St Alban's College in Pretoria and the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg . In 1982 he passed his graduate examination ( B.Sc. / Bachelor of Science ) in entomology . After graduating, he worked for some time as a ranger / gamekeeper in the well-known Mala Mala Game Reserve . In 1989 he gave up this occupation to settle with his wife Nicky in the home climes at Fugitives' Drift. It was here that he set up Fugitives' Drift Lodge as tourist accommodation and subsequently led travelers, estimated at more than 60,000 in number, across the nearby battlefields of the Zulu War of 1879.

When David Rattray was murdered, he was about to publish a book called A Soldier Artist in Zululand . The depiction was based on watercolors and drawings made by Lieutenant William Whitelocke Lloyd, one of the British defenders of Rorke's Drift, during the Zulu War. The pictures had only been discovered in England a few years earlier. A few years earlier he had already published the book Guide to the Anglo-Zulu War .

David Rattray was murdered on January 26, 2007 on his farm in KwaZulu-Natal . The perpetrator was caught and sentenced to 25 years in prison. David Rattray left behind his wife Nicky and three sons - Andrew, Douglas and Peter.

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personal data
SURNAME Rattray, David
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rattray, David Gray (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African historian
DATE OF BIRTH September 6, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Johannesburg , Republic of South Africa
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 2007
Place of death Rorke's Drift , KwaZulu-Natal , South Africa