The Foxhounds of Great Britain.[[5]]

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.

SIXTH VISCOUNT GALWAY IN 1875, WITH HIS FAVOURITE HOUNDS, BRIDESMAID AND RUBY.
(From “The Foxhounds of Great Britain and Ireland,” by permission of the publishers.)

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.