Mr. Assheton Biddulph, M.F.H.
Mr. Assheton Biddulph, Master of the King’s County Hounds, whose
portrait we give in this number, was born in the year 1850. He is the
second surviving son of the late Francis M. W. Biddulph, of Rathrobin,
in the King’s County, now the residence of the Master’s elder brother,
Lieutenant-Colonel M. W. Biddulph, late 5th Fusiliers.
Mr. Francis Biddulph, from whom his son inherits his love of hunting,
was a well-known sportsman in his day. The late Mr. O’Connor Morris, in
his book “Memini,” remarks that he was “one who knew as much as most men
about horses of all sorts, hounds, hunting, racing, &c.; in fact, he was
an encyclopædia of sport, and could ride to perfection.”
There are not now living many who remember the sad period, sixty years
ago, when Ireland was devastated by famine. Speaking of this time, an
old hunting man, long since gone to his rest, said to the writer, “I
never made such preparation for hunting as I did that year, but before a
third of the season was over there was scarcely a pack of hounds in
Ireland.” Hunting was only kept going in the King’s County by some
energetic gentlemen, as the country began to recover, keeping small
private packs and hunting in their own neighbourhood. Of these Mr.
Biddulph was one. He was at the same time a staunch patron of the Turf,
and owned many good racehorses. It was thus with his father’s pack the
present Master was entered to hounds.
In 1869 Mr. Assheton Biddulph was gazetted to the 57th Regiment, the old
“Diehards” (now 1st Battalion Middlesex), with which he was stationed
for some time in Devonport, where, whenever free from duty, he devoted
his spare time to the chase of fox, deer, and otter. Here, too, he made
the acquaintance of Squire Trelawney and Mr. Jack Russell, the sporting
parson. The regiment afterwards moved to Ireland, and thus gave him the
opportunity of again hunting in his native country. In 1873, the
battalion being about to proceed to Ceylon, and the outlook seeming to
offer but little opportunity of active service, Mr. Biddulph sent in his
papers, and began devoting his energies to his favourite sport. For two
or three seasons he hunted principally in Galway as the guest of the
famous Burton Persse, of whom he always speaks as his principal tutor in
the art. At the same time he confesses to dipping stealthily into
authorship; as “Vagrant” he used regularly to write hunting sketches in
the _Irish Sportsman_ for his old pedagogue, W. J. Dunbar.
Previous to this the late Earl of Huntingdon, then Lord Hastings, had
undertaken the task of reviving sport in the district, and hunted both
the original King’s County and also the country now occupied by the
Ormond Hunt, in Tipperary, till the year 1876. The countries were then
separated, the latter being taken over by Mr. W. T. Trench. They were,
however, again united in 1879 under Lord Huntingdon, an arrangement
which lasted till 1882; and during this period Lord Huntingdon received
the greatest assistance from Mr. Biddulph, who acted as both hunt
secretary and first whipper-in.
In the beginning of the season 1881–82 political troubles stopped
hunting in the district; the hounds were sold, the country was broken up
and left derelict for two seasons. In 1884 Mr. Assheton Biddulph faced
all obstacles, and, with hardly a fox left in the country, finding
hounds, horses, and everything for himself, started to resuscitate the
fortunes of the Ormond and King’s County Hunt.
Those who know Ireland understand how difficult it is to keep clear of
politics in that country. Mr. Biddulph, however, determined from the
first to avoid contentions, and the wisdom of this resolution, though
not wholly approved by those with whom he was most strongly in sympathy,
has been fully proved by his success. Thus for thirteen years he hunted
the great district occupied by both hunts, until in 1897 the countries
were again separated, the Ormond being taken over by the present Earl of
Huntingdon. Mr. Assheton Biddulph’s success during this period is best
testified by the following resolution, passed at the annual meeting of
the Hunt on May 5th, 1895:—
“That his many friends and the members of the Hunt accord a cordial vote
of thanks to Mr. Assheton Biddulph for his unceasing zeal and untiring
energy during his past eleven seasons of mastership, and that they take
this public opportunity to express a deep sense of their appreciation of
the grand pack of hounds he has bred in the country, the able manner he
has managed and hunted them, the fine sport he has shown, the tact with
which he has in troublous times overcome many and various difficulties,
thus raising to a high position amongst the Hunts of Ireland the
standard of the Ormond and King’s County Hunt, over which they sincerely
hope he may be spared to preside for many years to come.”
In 1898, on the division of the country and on the occasion of the
Annual Puppy Show at Monyguyneen, Mr. and Mrs. Biddulph were the
recipients of a very valuable presentation of plate, accompanied by the
following address in an illuminated album, which also contains the
signatures of about three hundred subscribers, members of every class in
the country:
“Your numerous friends in the King’s and adjoining counties in
recognition of the lengthened period during which you have hunted the
country at very considerable expense, and kept up sport in trying and
difficult times when it was abandoned in so many other places, beg your
acceptance of the accompanying pieces of plate, and trust that the
inscription which they bear (embracing Mrs. Biddulph’s name as well as
your own) will show how thoroughly we appreciate the admirable manner in
which she has always seconded your efforts to popularise sport by her
constant presence and prowess in the field. It will also, we feel
assured, gratify you to know that this testimonial has been subscribed
to over a very large area, and we all most heartily and warmly unite in
hoping that you and Mrs. Biddulph will be spared for many years to
maintain the best traditions of the hunt over which you so well
preside.”
Since that time Mr. Biddulph has added to the King’s County a large
portion of the Queen’s County, which was unoccupied, hunting three days
a week with a splendid pack of hounds bred by himself from the best
blood in the kingdom. Many of his fine stud of hunters are also
home-bred. Among the latter must be mentioned Billy Boy, a gallant grey
who carried his master for thirteen seasons. Never was a horse so well
known over so large a district. Latterly Mr. Biddulph had given him to
his children to ride, and he often carried the Master’s eldest daughter,
Miss Kathleen Biddulph.
During all the years he carried Mr. Biddulph any place Billy Boy and his
master did not get over or force a passage through no one else
attempted. In the dining-room at Monyguyneen hangs a fine oil painting,
by Lynwood Palmer, of the Master on Billy Boy, while Mrs. Biddulph, in
the same picture, is portrayed on her own favourite of so many years,
“Noirine,” now a pensioner, and half sister to Billy Boy.
Outside his own district Mr. Biddulph takes great interest in all
hunting matters; he was the originator of puppy shows in Ireland, the
first having been held at Monyguyneen in 1887. He was also one of the
originators of the Irish Hound Show, at first intended to be held in
Mullingar, but the scene of which, in consequence of difficulties, was
changed to Clonmel, where it is still held. In his spare time he is a
keen angler. He is fond of shooting over dogs, which he always trains
himself, but does not care for the modern systems of shooting. A noted
walker, no day is too long nor hillside too difficult.
Besides personally looking after all details of his kennel and
management of his pack, which he, of course, hunts himself, Mr. Biddulph
manages a large farm, from the produce of which the stable is
principally supplied.
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.”
To find true wild pagan sport, such sport as stirs the blood and brings
to the top the hardiest and manliest instincts in human nature, one must
go to the hills of Northern India or the wildernesses of tropical
Africa. And even in these areas, vast as they are, the wild game is
quickly disappearing. Much of the best shooting ground in Kashmire is
“shot out,” and nothing short of very drastic remedies can enable the
game to live in its original haunts. In South Africa the vast herds of
antelope, the elephants and rhinoceros, which roamed at will in the
highlands of the Transvaal and the valleys and forests of Zululand not
so many years ago, have disappeared before the rifle of the Dutchman,
or, more destructive still, the rifle of the nigger, supplied to him for
some paltry gain by Dutch or Portuguese trader.
In Mashonaland and Matabeleland much of the game has been cleared off by
rifle and rinderpest. The British South Africa Company’s Authorities
(all honour to them for it) have established game preserves and a
stringent game law, but still the game decreases every year. The
reserves are not large enough and the precautions against infringement
of the law not strict enough. Not so long ago a Dutchman in Matabeleland
killed five kudu bulls in one day, and left them lying where they fell.
It is true that he was detected and punished, but for every law-breaker
who meets with his just reward quite twenty go free. It is a mistake to
suppose that English sportsmen are responsible for the extermination of
the game, for the amount which they kill is as dust in the balance
compared with the wholesale slaughter committed by Dutch and Colonial
settlers and traders and by natives.
The British East Africa Authorities (who, by the way, have reserved a
strip of country alongside the Uganda Railway which is full of game)
have decreed that a “sportsman’s license” shall be issued to a visitor
to the country for £50, whereas a “settler’s license” may be had for
£10. A law on the same lines, though the amounts are smaller, has just
come into force in North-west Rhodesia. This seems to me manifestly
unjust. A man goes out from England to shoot for the sake of the sport
alone. So that he obtains good specimens for his collection and kills
enough meat to keep his boys he is content, and wanton slaughter is
probably repugnant to him. It would be useless for him to shoot more
than his allowance of each kind of game, for an attempt to take the
heads out of the country would lead to instant detection. Dutchmen, on
the other hand, and, alas, many “English” colonials, are, like natives,
hampered by no sportsmanlike considerations whatever. They kill game so
that they may sell the hides for a few miserable shillings, and they
kill it in season and out of season, bulls, cows and calves alike,
careless of whether they can use or keep the meat or not. Moreover, they
are not likely to run any risk of punishment for this wanton and
indiscriminate slaughter, for the tell-tale heads are left upon the
veldt. This kind of thing has been going on for years in Southern
Rhodesia, and with the advance of “civilisation” it will proceed merrily
in the territories to the north of the Zambesi, until all South and
Central African big game has been either killed off or driven away to
the fastnesses of the Bechuanaland deserts and the equatorial swamps.
More ominous than anything else for the future of the great game is the
fact (which the British South African officials may deny if they like)
that the natives in their Northern territories have many rifles and
plenty of ammunition.
I have attempted to show that, to my way of thinking, there will arise
during the next few years two very pressing needs:—
(1) To find a new sporting training-ground for Englishmen.
(2) To save the great game of Africa and India from final extinction.
And I think if the British, Colonial and Indian Governments be
sufficiently enterprising and large-minded, these two objects might be
effected conjointly, without much real difficulty and without great
outlay.
My scheme is:—In the mountains of Northern India, in the Northern
Transvaal, in Zululand, Mashonaland, Matabeleland, Bechuanaland,
Northern Rhodesia, Uganda, British East Africa and Somaliland, there
exist thousands of square miles of country, either mountain ranges, poor
veldt, sandy desert, forest, bush, or swamp, which can never be used for
either agricultural or pastoral purposes, but which are the natural
homes of the great game.
Let enormous reserves be formed in these places, the larger the better,
in which _no game at all_ may be shot for market purposes. Rangers may
be appointed, these being Government officials, and these rangers would
have power to grant licenses to kill game to any _approved_ British
subject. The applicant would have to produce proofs that he was a
respectable individual, and would have to make a statement upon oath
that he wished to kill game merely for sport—for the sake of the
trophies—or for scientific purposes, and not with any idea of making
money out of it. He would have to pay for his license, the amount
varying according to where he wished to go and what he wished to shoot.
These licenses could be granted by the home or Colonial Governments for
particular districts, subject to the approval of the local rangers,
which of course would not be withheld except for good reason.
The money paid for the licenses would go towards the necessary expenses
of maintaining the reserves.