Charles Robert Senhouse Pitman was born in Bombay in 1890 and educated at Blundell's School, Tiverton, and Sandhurst. He obtained a commission in the Indian Army in 1909. During the First World War he served in Egypt, France and Mesopotamia. Pitman gave up his commission in 1921 and spent the next four years farming in Kenya. He was Game Warden of Uganda between 1925 and 1951 with the exception of two periods on secondment, the first as Acting Game Warden in Northern Rhodesia, 1931-1933, and the second as Director of Security Intelligence in Uganda, 1941-1946. He retired to London in 1951. Pitman was a Scientific Fellow of the Zoological Society of London and served on the British Ornithologists' Union council, the British Ornithologists' Club committee and the Fauna Preservation Society committee. He also wrote many books and articles on African wildlife. He was awarded a CBE in 1950 and the British Ornithologists' Union medal in 1968. He died in 1975.

Biographical note written with reference to Pitman's entry in Who Was Who and to his obituaries in The Times (22 Sep 1975) and Ibis (vol. 118, no. 3, 1976, pp. 427-428).