Viscount Helmsley, M.F.H.
Charles William Reginald Duncombe, Viscount Helmsley, was born on May
8th, 1879, in London. In due course he went to Eton, where he found his
most congenial occupation on the river; he was one of the crew of the
“Dreadnought,” a “lower” boat, and would probably have made his mark as
an oarsman had health permitted; but, under medical advice, he was
obliged to give up rowing. From Eton he went to Christ Church, Oxford,
where he found time to officiate as whipper-in to the draghounds one
season, and where he played a good deal of polo; he was a member of the
University team for the two seasons 1900 and 1901. Indulgence in sport
did not prevent his distinguishing himself in the schools, as witness
his Honours degree in History before leaving.
After leaving Oxford he made a tour round the world, visiting India,
Burmah, Ceylon, China, and Japan, and returning home through Canada.
While in India he was fortunate enough to enjoy some tiger-shooting as
the guest of the Maharajah of Kuch Behar, the keenest among native
princes where big game is concerned.
On his return home Lord Helmsley made his entry into public life as
Assistant Private Secretary to Lord Selborne, acting in that capacity
from 1902 to 1904. He found time to hunt a good deal during this period,
running down for week ends from London to Melton, whence he hunted about
two days a week. He had been entered to hounds, when only six years old,
with the Sinnington, and remembers being “blooded” by old Jack Parker,
who for many years carried the horn, and was a famous character in
Yorkshire. He was always devoted to hunting and had his full share of
“spills” when, as a boy, he went out with hounds in the holidays; but
tosses notwithstanding, he saw some great sport with the South Durham
from Wynyard, and the Sinnington.
On Mr. Penn Sherbrooke’s resignation of the mastership of the Sinnington
in 1904, Lord Helmsley was asked to succeed that gentleman. There were
obvious and excellent reasons for his appointment; not only was the
Viscount known as a keen sportsman, with a sound knowledge of
foxhunting, but the Sinnington country includes the greater part of the
large estates of the Earl of Feversham, whose grandson and heir Lord
Helmsley is. Practically all the family property is hunted by the
Sinnington, with the exception of part of the woodland districts which
are within the borders of two neighbouring hunts—the Bilsdale and the
Farndale. His family connection with the country, therefore, with his
sporting qualifications, clearly indicated Lord Helmsley as the right
man for the office; and the two seasons of his mastership have been
conspicuously successful. The farmers in the Sinnington country are very
keen about hunting, and they, the majority of them tenants of the Earl
of Feversham, compose the field to a great extent. A good many of the
Sinnington farmers are horse breeders; and still more of them make a
business of buying young ones and making them for sale. Thus possessing
a practical interest in sport to add to their natural appreciation of it
they are to a man good fox-preservers and warm supporters of the Hunt.
The Sinnington consists of hill and vale country, and the former,
locally called the “high” country, has been the scene of some very good
runs during the past season. During the last fortnight they had an
excellent day; two runs each of an hour, finishing with a kill in the
open. Another run from Muscoates up to Rievaulx earlier in the season is
also to be remembered. The Master was not out on the former day, being,
unfortunately, detained by his recently adopted Parliamentary duties.
Lord Helmsley is very fond of shooting; he prefers grouse-driving to any
other form of sport with the gun, and after that, walking up partridges.
He is also a stalker.
He is not a great fisherman, but sometimes throws a fly on the Rye,
which trout-stream runs through Duncombe Park. He has not played much
polo since he left Oxford, having had many demands upon his time; and an
occasional game is all he has been able to play during the last three
seasons.
Lord Helmsley takes a great interest in every department of horse
breeding, more especially in the breeding of hunters and polo ponies; he
is greatly interested in the work of the Polo and Riding Pony Society.
He represents the Thirsk and Malton Division of Yorkshire in the
Conservative interest, having been elected at the General Election of
1906.
Sport at Westminster.
“When George the Third was King” used to be a favourite expression
amongst my elders when I was a boy, as denoting the many wonderful
events which occurred during the first twenty years of the last century,
and which terminated that long and glorious reign. Since then the
Victorian Era has come and gone, eclipsing in every way the glories of
its longest predecessor, and handing down to this twentieth century a
record which, as regards sport alone, is vastly in advance of all
others, so much so that although we of the elder generation naturally
are wont to enlarge occasionally on the greatness of the past, it has to
be admitted in our candid moments that our ideas and ideals have been
swept away, and can never again be used, except as ancient milestones on
the road to Parnassus.
It would seem, however, that thus early in our twentieth century it is
destined that a halt should be cried. The why and the wherefore of which
it is not befitting that your pages should discuss, except in its one
aspect, that of sport, yet, in truth, even sport cannot wholly be
dissevered from the growth of democracy, which, for good or evil, has
come like a March wind, untempered by sunshine, obliterating bright
prospects of spring and summer happiness, foreboding a season of
disappointment.
We many of us remember when on the last Tuesday in May, the Prime
Minister rising in his place in Parliament moved the adjournment of the
House of Commons over the Derby day, and the motion was agreed to _nem.
con._ Our annual classic race at Epsom was a recognised holiday for our
legislators. Lord Palmerston was never happier than when, as Premier, he
was shaking off the cobwebs of office on this occasion; his horses more
than once being competitors in the great race, and once he was second
for it. Lord Derby also led his faithful Commons to Epsom, and almost
carried off the Blue Ribband. Lord Beaconsfield, when Mr. Disraeli,
followed the same practice, and I think it was Mr. Gladstone who first
encountered dissentients to this motion. At first the minority of “noes”
was an insignificant one, yet it grew, and Gladstone himself not being a
sportsman, he soon gave way, and joined the “noes.” Thus the House of
Commons has long come to disregard the call of “off to the Derby!” and
who in the present Parliament would be bold enough to even raise the
question?
In France the President of the Republic leads the way in pompous style
to see the great Prix de Paris contested, and most popularly is he
welcomed there by citizens of all classes. Why have we as a national
community fallen away from a traditional custom?
More Parliamentary days are wasted in almost useless discussion than
were wont to be claimed and given to this one day of distinguished
sport. Our Gracious King is always present, the noblest patron of all.
He must feel the enforced absence of his elected legislators. Painful as
it is to admit the fact, we are now, nationally, handed over to people
who not only decry sport, but rejoice in its possible overthrow. Some
call them “faddists,” but they are worse, they are, many of them, at
heart socialists—social democrats, whose aim and object it is to crush
or set at naught the pleasures of those whom they are pleased to think
are the class that stand between them and the enjoyment of advantages
which all should enjoy alike, whether they have legitimately become
entitled to them or not.
I am not going to dissect this problem any deeper. It is far too nasty a
job for any one except a professional politician to attempt, but in
order to prove our case let us see what are the component parts of the
present House of Commons as regards sport.
There is only one member of the Cabinet who is a member of the Jockey
Club—the Earl of Crewe—as against four in the last ministry.
There is only one Member of Parliament who is also a member of the
Jockey Club, and he is Mr. C. D. Rose, representing the Newmarket
Division.
There are only eleven Members of Parliament, as far as I can ascertain,
who are owners of racehorses, and they are Colonel Hall Walker, Lord
Dalmeny, Sir S. Scott, Mr. F. Lambton, Sir J. Jardine, Mr. G. H. Faber,
Mr. C. D. Rose, Mr. Bottomley, Mr. E. Lamb, Mr. J. W. Phillips and Mr.
John Barker. Hunting testifies to its popularity in spite of the change
of opinions which have come over us. There are four M.F.H., in the
assembly—Mr. Lane Fox, Lord Helmsley, Mr. Pike Pease and Mr. D.
Davies—and four ex-M.F.H., in Lord Valentia, Colonel Legge, Mr. Rowland
Hunt, and Mr. Vaughan Davies, backed up by at least a dozen well-known
hunting men, such as Lord Castlereagh, Sir P. Muntz, Messrs. Mildmay,
Tomkinson, Brocklehurst and Butcher, Sir Clement Hill, Mr. Long and Mr.
Meysey Thompson; and, _en passant_, we can congratulate ourselves on the
fact that in the hunting field all political opinions are forgotten, and
that, although hunting M.P.’s so often vote in opposite lobbies they are
none the less of one opinion as regards hunting.
Cricket seems poorly represented, although we find a Hornby or a Cobbold
on the roll. For fishermen we will not answer, and of golfers there are
galore—every man that has arms and legs in these days essays golf. It is
alluring and easy until you try to excel in it—then follows
disappointment. Probably I am old-fashioned, but I hang lovingly to the
test of a public school education when seeking for reliable men,
whatever be their walk in life. In classing them, this standard, to my
thinking, comes before that of the Universities. Taking this test, I
find Eton men in the House number 73, Harrow 21, Rugby 18, Cheltenham 9,
Marlborough 7, Winchester 6, Charterhouse 4, Shrewsbury, Wellington and
Repton, 2 each. Allowing for a few more men that claim their place as
public school men at the smaller schools, we may take it that less than
200 of the total 670 members are public school men. This is not the
worst point of our analysis in seeking for the germs of sport in our
present House of Commons, for there are sixteen members who claim to be
_self-taught_. In their case they must have either been beyond the age
of boyhood before compulsory school education became law, or the school
attendance officers must have, in their cases, neglected their
duties—and yet these men, whose names it will serve no good purpose to
give in these pages, have no mean influence in the Council of the Empire
to-day.
If we made a comparison on the same lines between the Parliament of 1900
and the present one of 1906, I fear that our figures would tell of a
disastrous change in the whilom aristocracy of the House of Commons. It
has been called a billycock House, but, forsooth, it is only by its
actions that we must judge it; and let us hope that its bark will be
worse than its bite when the realm of sport is on the tapis. If only the
present Parliament would approach legislation on sport without malice,
we are far from thinking that they may not be benefactors to its true
interests, and they may dare to attack abuses which our friends would
let severely alone. For instance, why should they not put down their
foot on spurious sports, if it so pleases them? So many self-styled
sportsmen are trying to spoil sport by artificial means—hunting,
shooting and coursing semi-tame animals, and calling it sport. We, in my
humble judgment, have the greatest need to uphold true, honest, genuine
sport rather than its counterfeits, which only go to make our enemies
blaspheme at us with some cause. Perhaps I shall be electrocuted for
saying that the days of the carted deer are numbered, and that the
trapped pigeon and bagged rabbit should be done away with.
Probably still more dreadful things will happen to me if I say that
Dives, who turns his farms into pheasantries and his uplands into hare
or rabbit warrens, should be liable for the waste thus created of what
would otherwise be profitable to mankind; and should pay rates
accordingly, and damage to tenants who took their holdings without the
knowledge of the use to which their land, or that adjoining them, would
be put.
It may also strike them that the gambling laws may be reasonably amended
in such a way as to make betting profitable to the State, as it is now
in almost every other country in Europe, as well as in the Colonies, and
at the same time to do away with the evil and temptation which besets
the working man in what is termed street betting.
To abolish betting altogether, as some faddists would have you attempt,
is known by all practical people to be impossible. You may just as well
pass a law to close the Stock Exchange, and all the other Exchanges, and
make contracts in “futures” illegal. To abolish bookmakers or betting on
the “nod,” as it is termed, or not permit it anywhere except on a
racecourse under certain conditions, would be a reformation of which
even the most Radical Government might be proud, and at the same time
add to the prosperity of the country by compelling a percentage on all
betting transactions to be paid over to the Board of Agriculture and the
Local Government Board in equal proportions, for the benefit of the
stock breeders and the poor of the country. This sum would amount to at
least a million in the year, and would come out of the pockets of the
wealthy and the unthrifty, without any injury to the State—as has been
proved in the practice of the system of the Totaliser or _Pari mutuel_
in other countries. I have more than once ventilated this subject in
your pages, and it has been discussed and advocated in the Press,
although, as yet, the country at large does not appear to appreciate its
importance, and very few Members of Parliament have given it a serious
thought. There seems to be a holy horror of legalising betting, of which
this savours, and this seems to make it impracticable; yet many good and
wise people seem to forget that betting is not in itself illegal, and
never has been so. The system which we advocate would make no difference
in the law. It would only regulate it, with immense advantage to the
State and the community.
Parliament very strictly regulates the drink traffic, and I have never,
for the life of me, understood why it should not in a similar way
regulate the betting business, because it appears to me that they stand
on the same footing from a moral and legal standpoint.
However, I fear this subject will descend on deaf ears at Westminster at
the present crisis, where anything in the nature of sport is likely to
be tabooed, if possible, unless the independent party choose to take it
up, in defiance of the somewhat elastic consciences of many of their
_confrères_.
It is, nevertheless, a fact which no Government or Parliament can lose
sight of, that sport plays an important part in Great Britain’s life as
a nation; and that any serious interference with its material interests
will be detrimental to the country, and if attempted will be seriously
resented by the people in the future. Let us trust, therefore, that
although we now deplore the absence from the House of Commons of so many
men whose friendship to sport could be reckoned upon, yet that there are
sufficient left to ensure an absence of legislation which will be
inimical to the true sporting instincts of the people.