The son of Mr. Charles Mellish, of Blyth Hall, near Doncaster, a gentleman devoted to antiquarian research and obviously of very different disposition from his son, Henry Mellish was born in 1780, and coming into his kingdom after a long minority, plunged at once with infinite zest into every form of patrician dissipation. It has been said that he was at Eton, but his name does not appear in the school lists. At any rate, whatever his school, he seems to have distinguished himself at it by a variety of escapades, which culminated in his running away and flatly refusing to return. In his seventeenth year he joined the 11th Light Dragoons, from which he exchanged into the 10th Hussars, the smartest light cavalry regiment of the day, with the Prince of Wales for its colonel. There is a tradition that Mellish was granted perpetual leave lest his extravagance should corrupt the young officers; but his subsequent career proves that he must at least have seen enough of soldiering to have learned his duty. After he had left the 10th Hussars, his name appears in the army list as an officer of the 87th Royal Irish Regiment, and also as a major of the Sicilian Legion, in which many Englishmen held honorary commissions. At the same time, his name figures in the list of Lieutenant-Colonels. Mellish was no mere fashionable spendthrift. He was a man of many accomplishments. Nature, indeed, seemed to have qualified him for taking the lead, and to have given him a temperament so ardent, as made it almost impossible for him ever "to come in second."
He understood music, and could draw, and paint in oil colours. As a companion he was always in high spirits, and talked with animation on every subject; whilst his conversation, if not abounding in wit, was ever full of interesting information founded on fact and experience. He had a manner of telling and acting a story that was perfectly dramatic. He was at home with all classes, and could talk with the gentleman and associate with the farmer.
In Mellish culminated all the best of these various qualities which were considered the appanage of a patrician sportsman of his day. A most expert whip, no man drove four-in-hand with more skill and with less labour than he did; and to display that skill he often selected very difficult horses to drive, satisfied if they were goers. As a rider he was equally eminent: for years after his death his memory lingered in many a hunt, where he had led all the light weights of Leicestershire, Rutlandshire, and Yorkshire, when he was himself riding fourteen stone. His was the art of making a horse do more than other riders, and he accustomed them, like himself, "to go at everything."
The following stanza, one of those in a famous hunting song composed when Lord Darlington, afterwards Duke of Cleveland, hunted the Badsworth country, commemorates the young sportsman, who was well-known as a daring rider with these hounds:—
Behold Harry Mellish, as wild as the wind,
On Lancaster mounted, leave numbers behind;
But lately returned from democrat France,
Where, forgetting to bet, he's been learning to dance.
A melancholy occurrence once gave him an opportunity of displaying, not only his filial affection, but also his determination as a horseman. Having heard the alarming intelligence of his mother's illness, he mounted one of his barouche-horses to proceed to London, and actually rode from Brighton to East Grinstead, a distance of twenty miles, in an hour and twenty minutes; the strain of this feat was so severe that on arrival at his destination the gallant horse which had carried him fell dead.
As a runner he was by no means to be despised. He beat Lord Frederick Bentinck (renowned for fleetness of foot) in a running match on Newmarket Heath. For everything connected with sport Colonel Mellish possessed a natural aptitude, as was universally recognised.
In appearance he was a big man, who even as a youth weighed some twelve stone. Nearly six feet high and admirably proportioned, the pallor of his complexion was rendered more noticeable by his black hair and brilliant eyes. In dress he had a great fondness for light hues and usually wore a white "boat hat,"[7] white trousers, and silk stockings of the same colour. When he arrived on the course at Newmarket his barouche, which he drove himself, was drawn by four beautiful white horses, whilst two out-riders in crimson liveries, also mounted on white steeds, preceded this brilliant turn-out. Behind rode another groom leading a thoroughbred hack, whilst yet another waited at the rubbing post with a spare horse in case of accidents.
At that time he had thirty-eight race-horses in training, seventeen coach-horses, twelve hunters, four chargers, and a number of ordinary hacks. The expenses of his establishment were enormous. Besides these he lost very large sums at the gaming-table, where he once staked £40,000 at a single throw and lost it. At his own home he gambled away vast sums, and a table was formerly preserved at Blyth on which its former owner had once lost £40,000 to the Prince Regent. At one sitting at a London Club—it is said at Brooks's, though Mellish's name does not appear in the list of former members—he rose the loser of £97,000, and was leaving the Club-house, when he met the Duke of Sussex, who, hearing what had happened, persuaded him to return and try his luck once more. This he did, and in two or three hours won £100,000 off the Duke, who paid as much of this sum as he could, promising to settle the rest by a life annuity of £4000. It would, however, seem somewhat doubtful whether the entire debt was ever liquidated.