Elsa the lioness 1 February 1956 after George Adamson was forced to kill their mother when she charged him, in defence of her three cubs. George only later realised why the lioness had acted so aggressively towards him. George and his wife Joy then adopted the lioness’s four-day-old cubs. While Elsa lived in many ways like a domesticated pet when she was small, Joy Adamson, whom Elsa trusted the most, considered her relationship with Elsa to be that of equals. Indeed, after sending the other two to a zoo, Joy was fiercely determined to give Elsa the education she needed to hunt and
Bartlett Adamson Bartlett Adamson George Ernest “Bartlett” Adamson (22 December 1884 – 4 November 1951) was an Australian journalist, poet, author and political activist. Adamson was born at Cascade, Ringarooma, Tasmania, on 22 December 1884 to a Scottish miner, George Adamson, and his English wife, Jane, nee Bartlett. He was educated at Zeehan and Dundas and then worked as a clerk at a mine. The family moved to New Zealand where he worked as a clerk with publishers Whitcomb and Tombs in Wellington. He was rejected for military service during World War I on medical grounds. He married Scottish-born Mary Anne McLachlan