Mr. Henry Hawkins.
The subject of our portrait, Mr. Henry Hawkins, of Everdon Hall, near Daventry, was born at Kegworth, Leicestershire, in the year 1876. All his life he has been devoted to field sports of every description, and has played cricket seriously since he first captained the eleven of his preparatory school at the age of ten years. Since 1901 he has played for the county of Northamptonshire, and was one of those selected to play against the Australians in August last; he also plays for M.C.C., Warwickshire Gentlemen, and other clubs.
For some years he went in for racing with no small amount of success, owning Alpha, Hottentot, Bellamina, Stella III., and other well-known steeplechase horses, but he has nothing in training at the present time.
It was in the year 1901 that Mr. Hawkins purchased his pack of harriers from Mr. Horsey, and he has now hunted them at his own expense for more than five seasons over the beautiful vale which surrounds Everdon. In the Pytchley, as in every other country, much depends on the good-will of the farmers, and with the farmers Mr. Hawkins is a great favourite. He is a thorough good all-round sportsman, and is, in fact, immensely popular with every one with whom hunting brings him into contact. He has brought his pack, which consists of thirty couple of hounds, all in the Stud Book, to a fine state of perfection, and has taken the highest honours at Peterborough. Last season they accounted for more than twenty couple of hares, and this year bid fair to exceed the average, for they have been showing most continuous and wonderful sport.
Recollections of Seventy-five Years’ Sport.
II.
I seldom brought home a tired horse or had a fall. My good fortune in the latter respect I attribute much to the practice adopted early in life of riding steadily at fences other than water. Only men without nerve go fast at their fences. One day with the Pytchley, jumping a fence uphill, the ground broke away on the take-off, and my horse fell back on me in the ditch. We had to be dug out. I had the misfortune to lose a very fine horse close to Thorpe Trussels. Jumping quite a small fence, he dropped his hind-legs in a grip on landing and broke his back. I lost another good one (a mare) by a somewhat unusual accident. Alighting on rotten ground over a very ordinary fence, she snapped a fore-leg, and of course had to be destroyed.
One can take liberties with a sensible horse. In a run with the Pytchley one day hounds crossed the Welland, and a man tried to ride over a board footbridge. When he got to the middle one of the planks broke and he and his horse fell into the river. Riding a horse of the sensible sort, I gave him his head to follow; he stepped nicely across the open space, and we had the rest of the run up to Loatland Wood to ourselves.
The Leicestershire farmers were rare good sportsmen. Once during a gallop with Mr. Tailby’s across the oxers near Market Harborough my horse, a young one, fell and broke the curb bit. While I was putting matters to rights a yeoman came up, slipped off his horse, and seizing mine by the head put his own double bridle on it, saying, “Look at my horse, he don’t want a bridle!” Certainly the horse had had enough for one day, but the fact does nothing to qualify the kindly thought that prompted his owner. The man was a tenant of Lord Willoughby de Broke’s; few but a Leicestershire yeoman would have done such a thing. Another anecdote to illustrate the same spirit:—