Jane Goodall’s Marriages: Inside Her Relationships with Hugo van Lawick and Derek Bryceson

The renowned con­ser­va­tion­ist, whose death was announced on Oct. 1, was left wid­owed when her sec­ond hus­band died in 1980

The renowned con­ser­va­tion­ist and ani­mal wel­fare advo­cate, whose death at 91 years old was con­firmed on Oct. 1, became the world’s fore­most expert on chim­panzees after spend­ing decades study­ing them in the wild in Tan­za­ni­a’s Gombe Stream Nation­al Park.

While her ground­break­ing research made her a glob­al icon, both of her hus­bands — pho­tog­ra­ph­er Baron Hugo van Law­ick and Tan­zan­ian parks direc­tor Derek Bryce­son — played mean­ing­ful roles in her life and career

“If I had­n’t mar­ried [Bryce­son], there would­n’t be a Gombe today. If Hugo had­n’t come along, the chimp sto­ry [prob­a­bly] would have end­ed,” she said, before going on to explain why she “did­n’t want” to mar­ry for a third time after her sec­ond hus­band died in 1980.

“I did­n’t meet the right per­son, I sup­pose, or poten­tial­ly the right per­son,” she said. “I had lots of men friends, many. I had lots of women friends too. My life was com­plete. I did­n’t need a hus­band.”

Here’s a look back at Jane Goodal­l’s mar­riages to her two hus­bands, Baron Hugo van Law­ick and Derek Bryce­son

Dur­ing a May 2025 appear­ance on Alex Coop­er’s Call Her Dad­dy pod­cast, Goodall opened up more about their meet­ing, not­ing that she was hes­i­tant for him to come to Africa for the job

They want­ed to make a film and they want­ed good pho­tographs, so they sent Hugo van Law­ick and I real­ly did­n’t want him to come,” she said. “I had­n’t met him because I just want­ed to be there with the chimps, you know. I did­n’t want any­body and I was afraid they’d be scared of him and, you know, all my hard work would be undone.”

How­ev­er, Goodall said she soon real­ized that van Law­ick “loved ani­mals” and “always want­ed to be out there with them,” using pho­tog­ra­phy as a “route” to explore his pas­sion.

“We got on fine,” Goodall added, going on to say that van Law­ick “real­ly helped to share the knowl­edge that chim­panzees real­ly are like us.”

The pair got mar­ried in 1964 and wel­comed one child, son Hugo Eric Louis, before they split in 1974. The con­ser­va­tion­ist shared with Coop­er that their rela­tion­ship “end­ed grad­u­al­ly,” giv­en that Nation­al Geo­graph­ic stopped spon­sor­ing his vis­its to Gombe in Tan­za­nia, where Goodall was still work­ing.

“He had to go on with his career and he got some mon­ey to do films on the Serengeti, and I could­n’t leave Gombe,” she recalled. “I had to stay … I could­n’t leave Gombe, and so it slow­ly drift­ed apart. And it was sad.”

Reflect­ing on their split, Goodall said she felt as though they “did the right thing” by going their sep­a­rate ways, not­ing that they “kind of had to do it.”

“I def­i­nite­ly wish we could have car­ried on with that mar­riage because it was a good one,” she con­tin­ued.