John Weston Brooke

Who was John Weston Brooke?

John Weston Brooke FRGS was a British military officer and explorer born at Fenay Hall, near Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England. He went to school at Repton. In 1898, he joined the Yorkshire Dragoons, a Yeomanry unit, and served with the Imperial Yeomanry in the Second Boer War. He was promoted to lieutenant in the Imperial Yeomanry on 10 March 1900. An act of gallantry in the field won him a commission as second lieutenant in the 7th Hussars of the regular British Army, on the recommendation of Field Marshal the Lord Roberts, the commission was dated 3 October 1900, and in November 1900 he returned to England and joined the unit at Aldershot.

In 1902, Brooke resigned from the army and returned to England. There he met and worked with Major Frederick Russell Burnham, the famous American scout and then a Director of the East African Syndicate. In April 1903, as part of the Syndicate, Brooke left England for East Africa and went on an expedition with John C. Blick, Mr. Bittlebank, and Mr. Brown. The party, known as the "Four B.'s", traveled from Nairobi via Mount Elgon northwards to the western shores of Lake Rudolph, experiencing plenty of privations from want of water, and of the danger from encounters with the natives.