The Eton College hunt

The College Hunt was founded in 1857 by R. H. Carter with J. A. Willis as his whip. It is a great misfortune that from this year until 1863, when the Journal Book was started, we know very little about it. Carter hunted them for no less than three years, which proves at least that he was an enthusiast. His pack consisted of all kinds of nondescript “dogs”; there was no standard of size, and report has it that it included a retriever.

The pack was kennelled by one Ward in the Playing Fields, and hunted drags chiefly, but also wild hares when they were found. Sometimes they turned out bagged rabbits. One thing however we do know. They made an agreement with the Oppidan pack somewhere about 1859 by which the Oppidans took the country west and the Collegers the country east of the Slough Road.

The Hunt soon adopted a button with E.C.H. on it. There is a story of Provost Hawtrey arresting one of the whips in the Cloisters and demanding what the lettering on the button was intended to mean. The boy, aghast (for beagling was not allowed in those days), mentioned the letters E.C.H., whereupon the old man, who was not averse to personal flattery, took it to be a compliment to himself as they were his own initials.

One of the runs of 1859 was actually recorded in Bell’s Life. As I have already noted in the previous chapter the Oppidans joined forces with the Collegers on three occasions, this being one of them.

Carter was succeeded by T. J. Huddleston, and Huddleston by E. E. Witt, who held the hounds for two seasons. Of neither of these do we know anything. But Thackeray, who succeeded Witt, first instituted the Journal Book, which was kept right up to the time of the amalgamation in 1867. I have also been greatly helped by the only two College whips of this period who are still alive, R. V. Somers-Smith and A. A. Wace. Here is a letter from the former which covers this whole period from the season of 1863 to the amalgamation:

“I went to Eton as a Colleger in the autumn of 1862, and first ran with the Beagles in the following spring. Thackeray was then the Master, for which position his chief qualification was a copious vocabulary. We then chiefly hunted drags; only occasionally trying for a hare, never with any success.

“The pack had then been in existence only a few years; they were kept at the lodge at the Slough end of the Playing Fields by Ward, the groundsman, and were a mongrel lot. One or two real beagles, some cast-off harriers, some nondescripts, ‘just dogs.’

“As late as 1862 they kept a badger; the brute knew his job and trotted along until overtaken, when he sat down until the field came up. One of the whips carried a sack and a pair of tongs, and the badger was by help of the latter dropped into the former and carried home.

“There was a story against Lewis, one of the whips, that on one occasion the badger took refuge in a useful outhouse adjacent to a cottage, and Lewis was discovered sitting on the sack to prevent the badger escaping this way, making dives at him with the tongs when the badger threatened his legs.

“Lewis was Master in 1864; he was a little Welshman, rather prematurely aged; he was quite a sportsman but a poor runner. I used often to take a whip in his day, but do not think I was in ‘office.’ A. A. Wace was first whip.

“Lewis went to Merton; rather distinguished himself there as a rider—Merton being then a hunting College—and died suddenly in his room there in 1869.

“In 1865 A. J. Pound became Master. Pound was a remarkable character—intellectually rather below the average, but endowed with some originality and an exceedingly strong will. I have sometimes doubted whether he was quite ‘right’; he looked at the world and mankind from a point of view entirely his own, and made no effort to adapt himself to convention of any kind. But he was thoroughly honest and straightforward; the kindest and most faithful of friends.

“He subsequently went to the Bar, the last profession for which he was fitted, was for a time a magistrate in British Guiana, married an American, and latterly fell into pecuniary difficulties and took his own life.

“His eldest son is a distinguished sailor.

“Pound took up the Beagles seriously. He got together quite a decent little pack, and began to hunt hares regularly.

“Our great difficulty was the shortness of the time at our disposal. ‘After 12,’ the interval between 11 o’clock school and dinner at 2, after allowing for time spent in changing, we seldom saw even an hour’s actual hunting. Too short a time for beagles to run down a hare. ‘After 4,’ from Chapel to lock-up, was little better, especially as hares always made it a rule to run away from home, compelling us often to whip off in order to get back in time. One of my most abiding recollections is that of long trots back from the parts beyond Langley and Slough to get back to Absence.

“Pound adopted a scheme of his own of hunting in the morning. With one or two choice spirits he would arrange that we should be early at the ‘Saying Lesson,’ then the invariable early school, thus getting away soon after 7.30, run across to the ‘Dolphin’ at Slough (which stood on the site of Aldin House where old John Hawtrey subsequently flourished), breakfast on beer and biscuits and hunt until it was time to get back to 11 o’clock school. That gave us a good two hours’ actual hunting, and we began killing hares pretty often.

“I was Pound’s first whip and principal coadjutor for two years, and it nearly killed me! In fact I was sent home in the middle of the Summer Half of 1866 supposed to be threatened with consumption. Tindal and Gosset were whips, and subsequently Armitstead, who was a very fine cross-country runner, and at Oxford an oar of some repute.

“Of the 1867 season I have no recollection. I was not allowed to run for reasons of health, and I cannot even remember the name of the Master; possibly this was the year of amalgamation.”

Here is the first run recorded in the Journal Book:

“The E.C.H. met for the first time this season at the kennels. There was a large muster. The hounds were laid on in a wheat field of Gough’s adjoining the S.W.R. and ran at a tremendous pace down the grass meadows, crossing the S.W.R. and into Datchet plantation, in the plough beyond which a check ensued, which allowed time for the remainder of the field to get up with hounds. Some cold hunting now ensued, but hitting the scent off in one of Cantrell’s fields near Ditton Park they carried it at a great pace as if for Langley Church. The pace however was too good, and they ran into him in a field adjoining the London Road.

“After an interval of about ten minutes the hounds were laid on in a field adjoining Ditton Park, and, the scent having considerably improved, it was but few could live with them. The fencing here was very severe, numerous being the purls, and some stiff water-jumps intervened to cool the ardour of gentlemen who were too ambitious of shewing in the front. It was evident from the terrific pace they were now holding that nothing could live before them. And it was not long before they ran into their prey just as he was crossing the Upton Road.”

There is a complaint at the end of the field pressing on the pack, “and that there was far more noise than is consistent with the decorum of the hunting field.”

Here is a merry account:

“The running of the hounds could be seen all the way from Riding Court up to the Langley Road, and it was pronounced by all to be faultless. While a drag was being sent back two fields were drawn blank. The hounds, having been laid on, ran from Langley Broom down to Datchet Wood. The way in which they swung their own casts was the admiration of all beholders. ‘Hark! forrard!’ was again the cry as they bowled like marbles over the crest of the hill, making the welkin ring with their melody. When in the bottom they bent to the left; each hound scoring to the cry, as with the pack at her heels puss sought the friendly coverts of Ditton Park, having crossed the line which the drag had taken in full sight of the hounds. The huntsman and first whip, kindly assisted by Mr. Lewis, soon got the hounds out again. Home was now the word, and home we went after genuine sport, the field declaring that the only doubt was which was the better run of the two.”

The Beagling Book of this period abounds in quotations from the inimitable Mr. Jorrocks.

is a very true maxim, and Lewis has very aptly applied it to Beagling. Even as early as Thackeray’s season, however, they killed one wild hare after a good run. But a drag was the usual order, and it was poor sport really for boys especially because hounds ran as if glued to the scent. Occasionally this was varied with a rabbit, but just as the hare almost invariably escaped, so did the rabbit almost invariably succumb before two fields had been crossed.

Of course the great handicap was time. But the letter which I have already given has shown the immense difficulties in this respect. What enthusiasm was required to surmount them all and to carry on as they did!

All the accounts of the College Races are also included in the Journal Book. There was an unpleasant incident at the end of the season which may as well be recorded just to show how to deal with people who are not gentlemen.

“It was much to be regretted that several ‘gentlemen,’ who in no way contributed to keep up sport, thought it necessary to make remarks which only showed their ignorance of the art of venery, and complained of there being no sport for their adequate remuneration for subscriptions. Their subscriptions were returned, and, extraordinary to relate, the E.C.H. still existed. These gentlemen (?), like the ‘London Brigade’ with the Queen’s Hounds, were generally if not always choked off at the first check, and, if there was no check, were indeed ‘lost to sight’ but not ‘to memory dear.’”

And here is the obituary notice of a really kind and pleasant farmer, Mr. Gough of Datchet. A sporting farmer is a treasured article in any country, and when one dies the Hunt sustains a serious loss. This Mr. Gough had been particularly good to the E.C.H.

“The E.C.H. has much reason to regret the loss of Mr. Gough, a tenant farmer, who by his sportsmanlike conduct conduced in no small measure to the prosperity of the Hunt. On his land a sure find might be anticipated, and bagmen were unknown commodities. By his example several of the surrounding farmers were induced to open their lands to the E.C.H., and, though a lawn meet was not often the fashion, Mr. Gough’s hospitable house was never drawn blank for beer and luncheon. The ‘Gough breakfasts’ in the Lent term afforded many a pleasant recollection for dreary after fours, and his tales, though generally ‘twice told,’ were rarely tedious.”

H. J. L. B. Lewis was Master in 1864 with J. B. Wood, A. A. Wace, who is still alive, and R. V. Somers-Smith as his whips. Here is a letter from Mr. Wace which describes the sport with admirable vivacity:

“The Master of the College Beagles in 1864 was Lewis. He rejoiced in five Christian names; three, really surnames, indicated Celtic origin, of which he was very proud. Though of a short sturdy frame his lungs were not so good as his heart, as an early death at Oxford showed; and being slow over plough he left much of the field work to his long-legged whips. Lewis had learned how to handle hounds in kennel and field in Wales, and he gave us a very happy season with his knowledge, generosity and good temper. We had, if I remember right, five or six couples; dwarf harriers, rather than the beagles of Sussex; though there was one true to the latter type which generally did as well at a bad check as Lewis did. They were kennelled at Ward’s Lodge on the Datchet Road. We hunted, I think, three days a week, and our country extended from Salt Hill and Cippenham to as far beyond Datchet as the calls of hall or lock-up allowed us to get. After we had got our little pack and our lungs into some training by following drags we took to hares, but without much success except for exercise. Agar’s Plough and Cippenham were always good draws; but we rarely killed, for Ditton Park, lying in the centre of our country, was too convenient a sanctuary. It had its advantages, however, for us as well as for the hares, as we learnt to bless it as an excuse for being late for hall or lock-up. We could so often honestly say that we had lost time in getting hounds out of the Park coverts; and that seemed to please the Master in College; for, as he often told us, its ducal owner was his wife’s cousin. Hounds, then often disappointed, required blooding with a bagged hare or rabbit, neither ever giving a decent run; and I disliked the job all the more because Sussex had shown me a better way of using beagles for rabbits; and I thought of the hours spent with my gun in a ride while real beagles hustled rabbits round and round a big wood. Tiring perhaps of these ‘bags’ we yield to a suggestion, made I think by Joby Minor, that a badger would give us more fun, certainly more scent, and would always live to fight beagles another day.

“It was bought and did give us some fun at first; but this palled because the badger soon realised that it could save its skin without so much exertion as a long run over heavy ground. It used to make for a long coppice beyond the Datchet Road, and when the pack ran into him there he would run up and down immune, and finally run quite kindly into the bag in which he had left his pleasant quarters at Ward’s Lodge. He also developed a natural love of drains; and thereby hangs a tale, memories of which seem to discredit Joby Minor. Our badger had found a drain under the S.W.R. a nicer refuge than even that wood, and so Joby was ordered to stop it before unbagging the badger out that way. One ‘after twelve’ we had a merry run up to that drain but found it stopped. Hounds swore badger was inside; Joby swore he had stopped it; and suggested that finding this the badger had got out to the metalled line one way or the other, leaving on that no scent. It was dangerous to test this, and, casts on the fields either side failing, we drew off homewards. On the run back suspicions seized us, and two of us undertook to shirk hall or cut it short and run out again to that stopped drain before Chapel. Joby was right, but very wrong too! He or his understudy had stopped the drain, but not till the badger had been allowed to run in! He unstopped it when we were safely gone, and the badger had walked into its familiar bag. Had we two not met him just leaving the line he would probably have tried to sell us that badger the following week! I still cannot think unkindly of Joby when I recall the humour of this incident; or think of the Beagles of 1864 and of many friends who followed them, of whom two later on—Frere and Somers-Smith—ran for Oxford over shorter distances than we covered.”

Lewis was famous for his Rape of the Block, which was restored to the Head Master in 1891. The Block, as all Old Etonians will know, is used by offending boys to kneel on during the process of being swiped.

About this time the kennels underwent some improvement. “A new room was added, a new palisade raised and the brick pavement laid down. The appearance of the whole was workmanlike and neat, but not gaudy, reflecting credit on Mr. Martin, the carpenter.”

“Con—found all ’ares wot takes to parkses” (vide Mr. Jorrocks) was very appropriate to their country with Stoke Park and Ditton Park in the middle of it as tempting places of refuge for a sinking hare.

On one occasion in Lewis’s season he was favoured with a visit.

“Wednesday, St. Matthias’ Day, dies creta notandus, the great Pomponius Hego and Scrutator, known as having long held a proud position in the first flight of the E.C.H., leaving the ‘Shires’ favoured the provinces with their presence. Thackeray and Moore brought down a hare from Oxford, which Pound turned out at Queen Anne’s Spring.”

The sport, however, on this occasion was not good, “every inch of scent being trodden out by gentlemen who seemed to have discovered the secret of perpetual motion.” This season ended after rather unsatisfactory sport. In Lewis’s case ‘the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak,’ and he frankly owned that his running powers did not enable him to prove a capable huntsman. Ichabod, Ichabod.

But Pound got together a much better pack. His season has already been so well described by Mr. R. V. Somers-Smith that it is unnecessary for me to add anything. Pound seemed in all his accounts to have been completely dissatisfied with the world in general, for he scarcely ever praises anything in big records, and he speaks of almost everything in embittered terms.

On one occasion a hare was put up at 10.45, i.e. a quarter of an hour before school. The huntsman and whips returned to school while the hounds went on by themselves and killed their hare, which was stolen by and afterwards recovered from a sweep. This was only the third occasion on which a wild hare had ever been killed by these hounds.

One day the hounds joined with the Prince’s Harriers, and the Prince and his retinue passed close by and inspected the little pack, “no doubt with an admiring eye!” The unlevelness of the pack may be shown by the measurements taken on March 25th, 1865:

This was by far the most successful season the E.C.H. had ever seen.

So much for the College Beagles. It is to be wondered at that at this time there should have been two packs of beagles in the school, but it was about then that the differences between the Collegers and the Oppidans were one by one abolished. The amalgamation of the Beagles was almost the last of these reforms, and some account of it will be given in the next chapter. It was quite natural that the attempts to introduce beagles should have begun in an unofficial and semi-organised manner. But the pack in the time of Pound was very different from that of Carter. Just as the Oppidan pack had been brought to a respectable standard, so had the College pack; and it only remained for the amalgamation (hideous word!) to establish hunting at Eton on a very firm basis.