rangers, including Harry Wolhuter, and together they trained native rangers. Poachers soon realised that he was serious about the "no shooting" rule, and many were caught, "Including, on one occasion a party of senior policemen" who were caught killing a giraffe and a wildebeest and were convicted and fined for their crimes. After this, "what he did is now a matter of history. He trained his rangers, thinned out the lions and the wild dogs, declared war on the poachers and patrolled the whole area." He also became the magistrate, customs collector and border guard, as well as watcher of the railway line to the south of the reserve. His focus then went back to Johannesburg and Pretoria where he started to convince companies in the vicinity to lend him land, eventually giving him a huge block in a remote corner of Transvaal. By doing this, he created the space that is known today as Kruger National Park. Extending the reserve from the original to . In this larger protected area, wildlife could roam freely from the Crocodile River to the Limpopo River. In 1912, he first presented his idea for the nationalization of the reserve to then Minister of Foreign Affairs Jan Smuts. The idea was to transform the reserve into a national park, but to do this he needed "the support of the public, but to gain that support visitors should be allowed into the park". Unfortunately, World War I temporarily halted these events. In 1926, Piet Grobler established the National Parks Bill in parliament as encouraged by Stevenson-Hamilton and presented Kruger National Park as a realization of the dreams of Paul Kruger. The Sabi Nature Reserve was officially renamed to Kruger National Park of South Africa. In 1927, the park was opened to the public. Later life Stevenson-Hamilton served the game reserve for 44 years from 1902 to 1946. After his retirement on 30 April 1946, he settled in White River. At the age of 63, he married Hilda Chomondeley, 34 years his junior. They had three children: Margaret (born in 1931), James (born in 1933) and Anne (born in 1935). Death He died on 10 December 1957 at the age of 90. Legacy Stevenson-Hamilton was a good friend and fellow of the Tsonga people and he was dubbed "Skukuza" by the Tsonga who lived on the reserve, meaning 'the man who has turned everything upside down'