The Eton College hunt

by Anthony Crommelin Crossley

“Saturday, Jan. 23rd. Went with Vyner after 12 and bought two couples of Beagles. There were eight to choose from. We tried them all in a field. Gave £3 a couple for them. Ran a drag after 4, of four miles. I am huntsman, Johnstone mi. whip.”

All this is clear enough except the mention of Lawless and Hussey. Charrington’s pack was undoubtedly the nucleus of the Oppidan Hunt which existed till its amalgamation with the College Pack in 1866. But Lawless and Hussey kept a few Beagles at the same time. The present Lord Cloncurry, Valentine Lawless at Eton, has given me the following account of his Beagles and how they originated.

“I shall be glad if I can help in facts for your book about Eton and the Beagles, but after a lapse of more than sixty years it is not easy to write from memory without notes. Keeping dogs was an offence under strict school rules, though the rule had been often broken, and in Oct. 1857 or Feb. 1858 Dr. Goodford, who was then Head Master, invited me to breakfast at his house and to talk over the question of ‘Lower Boys frequenting Tap.’ As you know, ‘Tap’ was a private room in a public-house beyond Barnes Bridge where beer and mutton chops were served, and where drinking the ‘Long Glass’ and other time-honoured customs were maintained.

“Dr. Goodford proposed that, if I (as Captain of the Boats) would put up a notice in Tap, ‘that no Lower Boys be admitted to this room,’ he would withdraw the rules against dogs so far as to authorise the College Beagles and he would give recognition and assistance. My notice remained on the wall in ‘Tap’ for thirty years, it may be there now for all I know. As Captain of the Boats, I became nominal Head of the Hunt, but I was a bad runner, and a long-legged boy named Hussey, stroke oar of the ‘Victory,’ became the real Master and Huntsman of the first official Beagles. Before that time, Beach in 1854, and Charrington later, had kept a few couples.”

Col. Meysey-Thompson of Westwood Mount, Scarborough, has given me most of my knowledge regarding Charrington and the rival pack of Lawless and Hussey. He says in one letter:

“I have a hazy idea that Hussey had three or four Beagles, but he did not do much with them. Nor did in fact Charrington or the Edwards’ (a third rival pack about which I know nothing). They pottered about with them, though Charrington’s pack was a little more pretentious. But they were not recognised by the Masters of Eton; only about seven or eight of Charrington’s personal friends knew that they existed.[1] It was some time before the Beagles were allowed, and I can remember conversations that took place with Balston before they became a permanent institution.”

Again in a letter to the late Vice-Provost (F. H. Rawlins) in 1899 Col. Meysey-Thompson says:

“Although Charrington kept a few rather nondescript hounds in 1859 (and 1858), they were not really looked upon as a school pack, and had not much more title to this description than those kept at the same time by another boy ‘Edwards,’ both packs hunting anything and being taken out just when the whim of their owners seized them. Charrington’s, however, were undoubtedly the nucleus of the present hunt. I remember one hound he had that towered over the others, and was so very much faster that he always had a short belt buckled round his neck somewhat to assimilate his pace to that of his comrades, but even then he was usually about a quarter of a mile ahead.”

In another letter he writes: “The fact is that in the early years—certainly up to 1861—it was a rather scratch affair. ‘Joby’ acted very often as huntsman or whip, and those who were so called ‘whips’ scarcely received a formal appointment at first, but had the whips handed over to them at the meet.”

W. T. Trench, the Master in 1862, wrote to the late Vice-Provost a letter in which he questions Charrington’s position as the first Oppidan Master. I quote from his letter, but I think his evidence is overborne, and that there is little real doubt that the Eton Beagles owe their existence to the zeal and enthusiasm of Charrington and his College contemporary, R. H. Carter (about whom more anon). He says: