By Caleb McClain
The past few years’ worth of headlines about the British Royal Family have read more like seasons of “Days of Our Lives” than the chronicles of monarchs. Honestly, you could argue it’s been that way for the past 20–30 years, between the paparazzi’s obsession with Princess Diana and the public drama surrounding the princes and their growing families. These days, it’s hard to see the royals as anything more than reality TV stars. But once upon a time, they chose adventure over vanity.
After King George V was crowned ruler of Great Britain in 1910, he planned a trip for the following year to be officially proclaimed Emperor of India. Personally, I think George might have been a bit jealous of the American President’s recent safari and wanted a taste of adventure for himself, and just a tad jealous of other monarchs who had been on trips for themselves that he wasn’t invited on. Whatever the true reason, he organized a grand shikar with British and Indian royals in the remote Terai region of Nepal to celebrate his new reign. While it wouldn’t stretch to the year-and-a-half-long odyssey of Teddy Roosevelt, it was certainly eventful.
The King’s Grand Shikar
The two-week expedition began with a bang—or rather, two bangs. On December 18, 1911, the very first day they reached the hunting grounds, the king dropped two tigers using a tactic where elephants corralled the cats toward him. After driving 19 miles deeper into the jungle, the party stopped for lunch, during which John Lambton, the 3rd Earl of Durham, bagged another tiger. Shortly after, King George, Durham, and Luke White, the 3rd Baron Annaly, took down three rhinos—a busy first day, to say the least.
Their “camp” was hardly a camp at all. It was more like a temporary city, purpose-built in the jungle for this hunt. The grounds included a hospital, a post office, and, astonishingly, electricity—something only 15% of American homes had at the time. Yes, you heard me right, they managed to wire one of the most remote jungles in the world better than they could New York.
King George V — the Hunter
From the third day onward, things escalated quickly. King George shot five tigers and a rhino that day, four tigers and a bear the next, then another three tigers the day after that. While the king was busy amassing enough pelts to carpet an entire palace, the rest of the royals were having some success of their own. By the fifth day, they had piled trophies from three dozen bears, tigers, and rhinos onto the wagon train before departing for a new camp.
The hunting continued there, briefly interrupted by a Christmas service and a ceremony in which a local ruler presented King George with over 70 species of animals destined for the London Zoo.
As they say, all good things must come to an end. On December 28, the party departed by car on their long trek back to civilization. Along the way, the king bagged one final tiger—his 21st of the trip. By the end, the hunting party had claimed 61 big-game animals in just 10 days. Call me crazy, but something tells me that the reality TV stars who have inherited George’s kingdom won’t ever try to break this record.
