WELL-known Malvern businessman, traveller and wildlife photographer Derek Francis has died this week, aged 91.

Mr Francis was the son of a Malvern furniture maker, and together they set up the business now known as Francis of Malvern, selling furniture, beds and interims from locations in Malvern Link.

He was always interested in zoology and wildlife, with an early yearning to follow a career in science, and his success in business enabled him to rekindle that interest after he went on an African safari in the 1960s.

In an interview with the Malvern Gazette conducted just a few weeks ago, he said: “I got hooked on wildlife and the whole idea and necessity of doing something to preserve wildlife. I have had a passionate interest in the subject ever since.”

He combined his love of the natural world with a passion for photography. “I was the first British photographer to take pictures of a gorilla in the wild in Rwanda.”

His first foreign excursion was to France in 1947 on a Vincent 1,000cc motorcycle. Subsequently, he went to the USA with a friend, travelled with a BBC wildlife team to Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania in the mid-60s, and since then to most of the world’s exotic locales, with no continent and only a few countries left unvisited.

Some highlights of his globetrotting career include horseback safaris in Kenya, Himalaya treks, a trip to the Rann of Kutch in India, and visits to Borneo, Mauritius and Alaska.

In 1992, he married Susan, who shared his love of wildlife photography, and almost immediately they were off to the Antarctic.

Since then they have visited Australia and the western deserts of Egypt, climbed Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, and set foot on Kamchatka in the very far east of Russia.

Their most recent trip was a year ago last November, when they visited India.

"We visited a number of nature reserves that Derek had visited years ago, but which I hadn't seen, and we also visited the Gir Forest, where we saw the Indian lions," said Mrs Francis.

Mr Francis also became a champion endurance horse rider, and came out of retirement only seven years ago to compete again.

The couple founded the Francis Wildlife Charitable Foundation, which has given tens of thousands of pounds to wildlife charities in recent years.

Mrs Francis said: "We would have had our 28th wedding anniversary shortly. When we were first married, we didn't anticipate that we would celebrate our silver wedding anniversary, and I'm delighted we had so much time together, though it would have been nice to have a little more."

Mr Francis died on Monday following a short illness. Funeral arrangements have not yet been confirmed.