[BITList] The inventor of the safari park

[John Feltham]

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Chipperfield,  James Seaton Methuen  (1912-1990), circus proprietor and inventor of the safari park, was born on 17 July 1912 in a mahogany wagon on land belonging to Paul, third Baron Methuen, near Corsham, Wiltshire, the second son in the family of three sons and two daughters of Richard Chipperfield, owner of a small family circus, and his wife, Maud, daughter of George Seaton, another circus man. Because the show was constantly on the road, Jimmy received almost no formal education, rarely attending any school for more than a few days; but he grew up richly imbued with the traditions of the circus, in which his family had performed for more than two centuries. A short, stocky man with dark hair and strong features, he inherited his father's ferocious appetite for hard physical work. Hours on the trapeze equipped him with powerful arms and shoulders, and from an early age he showed an exceptional affinity with animals, not least with Rosie the elephant in which he and his elder brother, Dick, invested all their capital of £400 during the 1920s. He also trained lions and tigers, wrestled the bear, and played the clown.

At the age of sixteen Chipperfield fell in love with another Rosie, daughter of Captain Tom Purchase, circus proprietor and lion trainer, who had been killed by a lion. In 1934, when he was twenty-two, the young couple eloped and married, to circumvent his father's opposition, and they remained happily married for nearly sixty years. Their eldest son, also Jimmy, died of tetanus at the age of six in 1941, but they had two more sons and two daughters.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Chipperfield set his heart on becoming a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force. His handicaps would have defeated most aspirants: he had no mathematics, and only one kidney, the other having been crushed during a bout with Bruni the bear. Ignoring adverse medical reports, he put himself into school, alongside children, and by sheer determination mastered enough trigonometry to win his wings and fly Mosquito fighter bombers with 85 squadron.

After the war Chipperfield returned to the circus, and in partnership with Dick built up the biggest travelling show in Britain. Then in 1955 he broke away on his own, farming in Hampshire, training animals for Walt Disney films, and founding a zoo in Southampton. He began to travel in Africa, and it was the sight of big game roaming the plains of Kenya and Uganda that gave him the most important idea of his life. This was for a novel form of zoo, in which the animals would run free in large paddocks, and human beings would stay in cages-their cars-to drive among them. It took him some time to find an ideal site, but in 1964 he hit on Longleat, the ancestral home of the Bath family. There, in partnership with the sixth marquess of Bath, he built the world's first safari park. While the fences were being installed, The Times denounced the scheme as 'a dangerous folly', and called for its suppression; this made excellent publicity for the venture, which opened at Easter 1966 and proved a colossal success.

Other parks followed at Woburn, Knowsley, Blair Drummond, and Bewdley. Their success attracted the enmity of traditional zookeepers, particularly Sir Solly Zuckerman, then secretary of the Zoological Society of London; but Chipperfield claimed with obvious truth that, apart from inventing a novel attraction, he had established useful breeding groups of endangered species. He became a rich man, bought expensive cars, and enjoyed his association with landed aristocrats such as the marquess of Bath and the duke of Bedford.

In 1975 Chipperfield and Rosie suffered a severe blow when their eldest surviving son, Richard, was killed in a car accident in Uganda. An outstanding animal man, with an attractive personality, he had been the natural heir to the business. With him gone, it was left to Mary, the elder daughter, to carry on the family's circus traditions. During the 1960s Chipperfield settled comfortably, but without ostentation, into a substantial house on the outskirts of Southampton. In 1986 he moved to a farm at Middle Wallop, in Hampshire, where he remained surrounded by animals-there was usually a chimpanzee on the premises, and often a lion cub-and by the latest electronic gadgets. Although tough with anyone who crossed him, he was generous and loyal to friends, and retained a fierce pride in his family and their achievements. He published his autobiography, My Wild Life, in 1975, and died on 20 April 1990 at his home, Croft Farm, near Middle Wallop, and was buried at Great Wishford, Wiltshire.

Duff Hart-Davis 

H. C. G. Matthew 

Sources  J. Chipperfield, My wild life (1975) + The Times (21 April 1990) + private information (2004) + personal knowledge (2004) + CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1991)
Likenesses  G. W. Hales, photograph, 1953, Hult. Arch. · P. Dunne, photograph, 1971, News Int. RO [see illus.]
Wealth at death  £145,508: probate, 13 March 1991, CGPLA Eng. & Wales



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