The family descends from the ancient one of the same name in Staffordshire, which is derived from one Ormus le Guidon, Lord of Darlaveston, Buckinghall, Biddulph, &c., who lived in the time of “Doomsday,” as mentioned by Erdeswick in his history of Staffordshire.
Mr. Biddulph married in 1880 Florence Caroline, younger daughter of the late Rev. Cunningham Boothby, of Holwell Rectory, Burford, Oxon. Mrs. Biddulph is as well known in the hunting-field as the Master himself. The family sporting traditions are carried on by their son, now a boy at Harrow, who must inherit the sporting instinct, descended as he is on his mother’s side from Thomas Boothby, who, as history records, was in the eighteenth century the first man to keep hounds for the purpose of hunting foxes only. Thomas Boothby’s horn is at present preserved as a treasured heirloom in the Corbet family, of Cheshire, into whose possession it passed through intermarriage. We should add that Mr. Biddulph is the second oldest Master in Ireland, having carried the horn for twenty-two seasons.
Englishmen’s Sport in Future Years.
It is an almost universally acknowledged fact that the passion for sport in its wildest and least artificial forms, which is inherent in the Anglo-Saxon race, has contributed not a little towards putting that race in the position which it now occupies in the world. It is the love of sport which makes it possible for Englishmen of good birth to endure long years of exile in the wilderness while doing the empire’s work, without suffering that mental, moral and physical deterioration which is so painfully apparent in men of Latin race in tropical Africa and America. It is the influence of sport, to which he is bound not only by individual taste but by the ties of heredity and tradition, which brings the English gentleman to the fore in any enterprise requiring nerve, independence, resolution and stamina, a cool head and a strong hand. It is the sportsman’s training which has made British officers the best officers in the world.
The question occurs to one, what will future generations do for their sport? If the British empire is to maintain her place and fulfil her destiny, it is absolutely necessary that the young men of the upper and upper-middle classes should have that sportsman’s training which is now happily within reach of most of them. The sports which are probably the most useful in the mental, moral and physical training which they give are hunting, the pursuit of large game, and in a lesser degree game shooting in the British Isles. And these three sports are all in danger, if not of extinction, at any rate of eventual restriction to the few and the rich.
It is obvious that other sports and games have their uses in the training of the youth of the nation, and most of them are likely to flourish as long as Britons remain Britons. Racing, for instance, was probably never more prosperous than now in England and Australia, and the sport has taken a good hold in South Africa; the class of horses run was never better, and the standard of turf morality, low as it undoubtedly is, shows signs of eventual improvement under the stern hand of the Jockey Club. And while it may be doubted whether “following the meetings” does a young man much good, except in so far as it teaches him which is the most foolish way of spending his money, yet, if he goes racing regularly and be not quite an idiot, he must pick up some little knowledge of horse-flesh and of mankind.
Polo is altogether admirable so far as it goes. It calls for nearly all the qualities which we are wont to approve of in our fellow countrymen. But it is too expensive an amusement and too limited as to the number of men who can join in it to be really useful as a training school. Cricket, football and rowing are very well in their way, but they are games as opposed to sports, and do not from their nature appeal to the wild pagan instincts which we have inherited from our Saxon, Norse, and Briton forefathers.
Foxhunting and the chase of the wild red deer undoubtedly head the list of British sports. But how long will they continue in their present state? The growth of London and other large towns is pushing hunting further and further away. The increase of population and the growing wealth of the middle class is dotting the countryside with villas, “week-end residences” (odious phrase), and fruit and flower farms. Much of the South of England which a generation ago was good wild hunting country is now completely spoilt, from that point of view, by bricks and mortar. Foreign competition and the lack of agricultural labour are forcing the farmer to practise the strictest economy and to fence his land with barbed wire. The leasing of shootings to rich men from the towns tends to make fox-hunting a less natural and more artificial sport every year, and to limit its scope. Every year more men and women want to hunt, and ought to hunt, and every year there is less room for them. A melancholy sign of the times is apparent in the number of masters of hounds who find “the game not worth the candle,” and resign. It appears that fox-hunting in a generation or two will be an amusement for the rich only, and for comparatively few of them, and it can never again be the glorious, wild, unartificial sport which our forefathers enjoyed.
Numbers of men find healthy and wholesome amusement in shooting; but shooting under the influence of the plutocrat has become terribly artificial, and its conditions are too carefully “cut and dried.”