HRH FOUNDER, DAVID HAMILTON TETT, COMES FROM A SOUTH AFRICAN family of illustrious pioneers and explorers who helped establish the Western Cape of South Africa.

Six generations ago, David’s maternal ancestor, Joseph Hamilton Barry, along with William Robertson, founded the town of Robertson in the Western Cape of South Africa, and the city still honors the family with Barry Street in the town center. In 1853, the Cape Colony received representative government from the British, established the first Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope, and elected the Honorable Joseph Hamilton Barry as the Swellendam representative.

The Barry family built an empire that established stores, churches, schools and counting houses (the forerunner to banks in South Africa) across the Cape hinterland in the 1880s. In 1918, the Barrys purchased Riverton Farm, also known as Riverton Stud Farm, which still exists today.

Joseph’s grandson, Michael Hamilton Barry, became a Rhodes Scholar and Oxford law graduate and moved from the Cape in South Africa to Bulawayo, the capital of Rhodesia (which later became Zimbabwe.) His daughter, Jennifer Hamilton Barry, married Michael Tett, whose father, Henry Tett, was an amateur inventor who helped bring water purification to South Africa. Growing up, David Tett and his brothers reveled in the safari adventures on the Barry family’s tracts of wildlands in the Tuli block and Matebeleland. Later, the Tett boys built on those safaris and the family tradition of exploration by founding Bushtracks Expeditions. Bushtracks runs authentic African safaris planned by hosts, guides, and African personalities the family has known for decades.

The business eventually grew to include international private air travel and custom premier experiences, and David founded HRH World Discovery Tours to honor his family’s rich history. HRH reaches beyond the African continent to explore an expanded roster of out-of-this-world discovery tour locations. Each experience includes private air travel and custom premier experiences for curious explorers.

Groundbreaking pioneers in the Barry and Tett families passed on their spirits of adventure to successive generations. We give these ancestors a tip of the hat and pay tribute to them with names from our family history—Hamilton, Robertson/Riverton, Henry—HRH.