The Foxhounds of Great Britain

A REVIEW.

History has been lavish in a casual sort of way with hounds and hunting during the last century. “Nimrod” in early days initiated descriptions of our most fashionable and best countries, as well as their denizens, and did a leading part to bring sporting literature into popularity; yet he was in no sense a hound man—he loved the horse and his rider, and was, par excellence, their historian. “Cecil,” who followed him, was, on the contrary, a hound man, his happiness lay in the kennel, and in his descriptions of the countries through which he toured, his pen ever hung on the treasures of the kennel, and its management in breeding. “Druid,” in his unique and gossiping way, gathered his facts and hound-lore from fireside chats with huntsmen—the best of his day. To him sketches of hunting countries mattered little; he simply delighted his readers with fragmentary touches, so pithy and telling, of men and hounds, and their manners, which, however, added little to the general history of hounds or hunting throughout the country. It has been left to Sir Humphrey de Trafford in this twentieth century to initiate the idea, and carry it out, of gathering together all the threads of bygone days, and weld them together in a comprehensive form, showing what our foxhounds throughout the United Kingdom are at the present time—their early history, their main features, their chief supporters, and their hound-lore. To bring all this into the compass of one volume was no easy matter, where so many interesting facts had to be garnered into a given space, and that by those best versed in their subject; yet the task has been accomplished in a way which I venture to think its readers will appreciate as eminently practical and useful.

Whether you take this historical sporting book as a whole, or in the light of individual packs and their countries, you cannot fail to be struck by the landmark that it is for us to-day. Here we find one hundred and ninety-nine English packs of foxhounds in England and Wales (and I have failed to discover one that is missing), twenty-four packs in Ireland, and eleven in Scotland; and it needs little research to see how they have one and all grown and flourished through good and bad times, fighting and encompassing difficulties, spreading, subdividing, increasing in numbers and in importance, ever onwards, until it can hardly be said that there is a square mile of country outside large towns or manufacturing centres where the foxhound is not honoured and welcomed. This is veritably a proud thing to say in the year 1906, yet it brooks no denial. It will surprise many readers to find with what authenticity some of our great packs can carry back their history to bygone centuries. Of these the Berkeley bears the palm, for did not a Lord of Berkeley so far back as the fourteenth century establish a metropolitan pack with kennels at Charing Cross? His descendants had so fostered and spread their hunting that in 1770 the then Lord Berkeley held all the country from London to Berkeley Castle, in Gloucestershire, a distance of 124 miles, with kennels at Cranford, Gerrard’s Cross in Bucks, Nettlebed in Oxon, and at Berkeley Castle. Thus arose the old Berkeley Hunt, which became a separate country in the year 1800, only to be since sub-divided into an east and west pack. The Berkeley also annexed at one time nearly the whole of Gloucestershire, and founded the Cotswold when they built kennels at Cheltenham. The noted Harry Ayris was huntsman at Berkeley from 1826 to 1857.

The Belvoir also claim a very old heritage, viz., from the reign of James the First, and the first Duke of Rutland hunted about the year 1650. The Bramham Moor pack was instituted in the reign of Queen Anne, and will ever be associated with the family of Lane Fox. The Burstow owe their origin to Sir Thomas Mostyn, who migrated from North Wales. The Burton will always be coupled with the name of Lord Henry Bentinck. The Badsworth claims 1730 as its date of origin, while the Badminton commenced its unbroken reign of ducal mastership and signal success in 1762, including as it then did the present Heythrop country and nearly all Wiltshire. The long service of their huntsmen has always been phenomenal. Philip Payne served as huntsman under four dukes, and Will Long, who succeeded, served as whip under him for seventeen seasons; and now Will Dale is continuing the rôle, in succession to Charles Hamblin, although as huntsmen themselves the last three Dukes of Beaufort have had no compeers.

The Bedale is inseparably associated with Lord Darlington and the dukedom of Cleveland; while the Old Berkshire country is, curiously enough, indebted to the Church for its early history; the Rev. John Loder being its founder in 1760, only to be succeeded by his son-in-law, Mr. Symonds, another clergyman, in 1850. This would seem to be a fitting history for a pack kennelled so near Oxford University; but indeed, as I have had occasion to mention in a former article in your Magazine, foxhunting owes much to its patronage by the Church from time immemorial, and surely this is not its most inglorious tradition.

We cannot help being struck with the number of packs that come under the letter B in this volume, no less than twenty-three of them, including the Duke of Buccleuch’s, in Scotland; and the letter C comes next with over twenty.

The Earl of Yarborough has the proud distinction of being the owner of a pack that through eight generations has been handed down lineally as a private pack to the present day, and from 1714 its kennel book has been maintained carefully. It is, indeed, hard to say how much foxhunting owes to such splendid sportsmen as the Pelhams have been in their care and breeding of hounds. The Yarborough pages in this book are a revelation to sportsmen who appreciate what a landowner can do with 60,000 acres within a ring fence, and able to indulge to the full in hereditary tastes.

Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn’s pack, the Wynnstay, is another instance of the success of a territorial magnate successfully forming an historic pack and country.

The Quorn, the head and front of fashion, that has led the way among the daring hard-riding spirits of Great Britain for more than 200 years, is most ably dealt with in this volume. From the days of John Boothby in 1700, and of old Hugo Meynell, who succeeded him in 1753 up to 1800, there have been twenty-five masters of the Quorn who have one and all handed down their names to posterity as worthy of note, and have earned the gratitude of many thousands of men who have in their time satiated their ambitions over those Leicestershire pastures, where the oxer still holds its own, and wire is treated as a noxious weed. The picture of old Hugo Meynell and his old huntsman, Jack Raven, is inimitable; you can see there the characters of those two aged sportsmen discussing the pros and cons of the day, and can fancy how fully they are entering into it. Let us leave that Meltonian chapter with all its particulars and prints to the full appreciation of its readers.

The Cottesmore is scarcely a less interesting chapter. Founded by the Noel family at Exton Park in 1753, that adjoins the village of Cottesmore, from which it takes its name, it soon came into the Lowther family, and was hunted for a long series of years by the first Earl of Lonsdale. Then we find Sir Richard Sutton at the head of affairs, followed by Sir John Trollope, afterwards Lord Kesteven, and Mr. Henry Greaves—always in high feather—with its glorious sweet-scenting country, its grand woodlands, strong foxes, and expansive acreage of upland pastures. Surely, if any country in the world is made for the sport of kings, that country is the Cottesmore, which now enjoys the acme of sport, and worthily so.

We long to dwell on the Atherstone, the Meynell, the Oakley, the Grafton, Lord Harrington’s, Lord Galway’s, and the Rufford, did our space permit, but are not their stories all faithfully and succinctly told there?

Cheshire stands out well, and the old Tarporley Hunt Club is a lasting tribute to the hunting instincts of that famed shire, where every other sport stands aside to make way for it. Shropshire also is its goodly neighbour, hunted as it is from end to end, right up into its Welsh border, in a style worthy of its best traditions; and viewed from its grand old Hawkstone on the north to gaunt Clee Hill on the south, is a fair domain of sport.

Yorkshire, of course, is another leading feature in the book, as well it must be, and so are our southern, eastern, and western counties; none, indeed, escape all the notice that is their due; and as it is not given to all sportsmen to revel in the realms of pasture, unalloyed by the drawbacks of small enclosures, hills and dales, crags and boulders, mud and marshes, or impenetrable woodlands, so we all accommodate ourselves to locality, and are happy in our less ambitious surroundings and histories. To these this book will not the less be a treasure. Whether we happen to be east or west, north or south countrymen, we recognise a friendly word, a well-known and honoured portrait on every page.

Neither Ireland nor Scotland has been forgotten, as it is well they should not be, for as far as hunting is concerned, are we not united in a bond of love and friendship, which it will indeed be hard to sever? For is it not to those Irish horses that we owe our mainstay over here, that so soon learn to jump our flying fences as easily as their native banks? And do not we welcome some of our finest riders from across the Irish Channel?

In dealing, however, with the historical side of our foxhunting book, we must not overlook its value as regards the foxhound himself. Great pains have been taken by the compiler of this work to define the combination of blood which has been diffused into each individual kennel and has contributed to its success. To hound-lovers this book must prove of especial value, and we can picture the delight of our old friend, Mr. Cecil Legard,—whose portrait is to be found in the introduction—when he scans its pages, and the satisfaction he feels at having spent many years in perfecting the Foxhound Stud Book. It would ill become me to enter into much foxhound lore in this short review, further than to say that, from the days of the old Corbet Trojan down to those of Brocklesby Rallywood, and so on through the Belvoir celebrities and the Craven and Warwickshire favourites, as well as others in profuse plenty, not only are they made mention of, but the portraits of many of them adorn the pages and speak for themselves as to the symmetrical beauty of the modern foxhound—a fact that the success of the Peterborough Hound Shows bears ample evidence to. When I look at these splendid specimens of hound culture I cannot ever refrain from picturing what natural perfection there must be in the grand attributes of that little animal the fox, which for centuries right up to to-day has been enabled to withstand the onslaught of his foes, and defy all their artifices.

A leading feature of this book is its illustrations. It will be evident to all who study it that to gather such a collection of portraits of men and hounds, as well as innumerable hunting groups and meets in almost every country, has been a work that has taxed the energies of all who have had a hand in its compilation. Such a thing has never been attempted before, and its accomplishment will suffice for many a long year. Turn over page after page as you may, you come across old and young friends, the Nestors of bygone days, and our best young Nimrods of to-day. This is in itself a theme on hunting, which I long to go away “full cry” on, were it not that you, Mr. Editor, let fall the threatening crack of the whip, warning me homewards. It concludes with tabulated pedigrees of some of our most celebrated hounds that have won the leading honours at Peterborough, such as Fitzwilliam Harper, V.W.H. Damsel, Belvoir Dexter, Grove Druid, Puckeridge Cardinal, Zetland Rocket, and Lord Middleton’s Cheerful, and winds up with a key plate of the Quorn meet at Baggrave Hall.

Perhaps we ought to say a few words in commendation of those fourteen sportsmen whose brains and pens have assisted the Editor in bringing this great work on foxhounds before the public. They knew their subject, and have striven hard and well to draw together all the cardinal points of interest in each country with which they had to deal. How far they have succeeded it will be for readers or critics to say. Inasmuch as I am myself a helpmate in this matter to a small extent it will not become me to say any more than that it has been a labour of love to me, and that I feel sure that Sir Humphrey de Trafford will, as the Editor, hand his name down to posterity in honour for this standard work.

Borderer.