Kenneth Mission Pennington

Kenneth Misson Pennington: - ‘KMP’ – died unexpectedly in January 1974. The manuscript of his life-long work on the butterflies of Southern Africa was unfinished. Yet, during his life he had come to be held in such respect and regard, both as a schoolmaster and as a butterfly-collector, that within a few months of his death, plans were underway to pay tribute to him by publishing (this) book under his name.

Born in September 1897 in Greytown, Natal, he went first to St. David’s School there and then on to Michaelhouse where he had a highly successful career both in the classroom and on the sports fields. World War 1 interrupted his career. He joined the Royal Flying Corps. was awarded the A.F.C. and mentioned in despatches during his service in Mesopotamia. After the War he went up to Oxford as the Natal Rhodes Scholar, gained his MA and B.C.I., and returned to Natal in 1923. He married Ruth Frampton in that year. They had grown up together in Greytown as children and their marriage was to last over fifty deeply happy and rewarding years. In 1925 he dramatically abandoned his promising career as a barrister at the Natal Bar to become a schoolmaster at his old school. The decision was not only to be of inestimable benefit to Michaelhouse, which he served for the next 34 years, but also gave him full scope during the school holidays to range far and wide over Southern Africa in pursuit of its butterflies. In his years of retirement at ‘Yellowwoods’, originally a Great Trek homestead near Curry’s Post, he began to compile the manuscript of his book; but so great was his interest as a collector in breaking new ground, and so vigorous his health, that much of his time was still spent away from home ‘on safari’ and the manuscript tended to be neglected.

However, he had so inspired others by his boundless enthusiasm and willingness to share his unequalled experience in the field, that an extraordinary drive was soon underway to complete his life’s work on butterflies, a drive, which has culminated in the publishing of this definitive work on our Lepidoptera.