

He was educated at Eton and Brasenose College, Oxford. ĭenys’s early years were spent in the nearby Haverholme Dower House, but when his father inherited the title in 1898, he and his siblings were relocated to Haverholme Priory. As the Eastwell estate was let go, Denys's father instead was brought up by his mother Fanny, dowager Countess of Winchilsea quietly at Haverholme Priory, another country house inherited by his late father the 10th Earl of Winchilsea in 1831 from his childless aunt and uncle in law. this was also the house where Denys's father was born. the boys are thought to be Denys and Guy Montagu Finch-Hattonīy the 1860s, his half uncle the 11th Earl of Winchilsea had gambled away the family's several fortunes, and was forced to leave the ancestral seat Eastwell Park, which at the time of Denys's birth was already tenanted to Prince Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria and his wife Maria Alexandrovna of Russia. He was also descended from Jane Austen's rich brother Edward Austen Knight through his Grandmother Fanny Margaret Rice, who herself was daughter of Elizabeth Austen Knight and Edward Rice. He was born into an old aristocratic Finch family, His paternal Great Grandmother was Lady Elizabeth Murray, cousin of Dido Belle.


Finch Hatton was the second son and third child of Henry Finch-Hatton, 13th Earl of Winchilsea and his wife, the former Anne Codrington, daughter of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Codrington. In the book, his name is hyphenated: "Finch-Hatton".ĭenys was born in Prince of Wales Terrace, Kensington on 24 April 1887. Denys George Finch Hatton MC (24 April 1887 – ) was a British aristocratic big-game hunter and the lover of Baroness Karen Blixen (also known by her pen name, Isak Dinesen), a Danish noblewoman who wrote about him in her autobiographical book Out of Africa, first published in 1937.

Henry Finch-Hatton, 13th Earl of Winchilsea Out of Africa, Karen Blixen's Kenya memoir is 80 years old and 80 years out of date
