The Eton College Hunt

CHAPTER I.. The Oppidan Beagles.

THE OPPIDAN BEAGLES.

It was a manly country-loving boy who first undertook the task of introducing Beagles to Eton; a boy, versed in the etiquette of hunting and devoted to a healthy open air life, who loved a horse and who loved a hound, fond of music and fond of dancing, who spent every moment of daylight in cultivating the instincts of a clean country-bred Englishman.

Edward Charrington is unfortunately dead. He died in 1894, but he left behind him a diary of his last two years at Eton, and in this he gives a lucid account of how he initiated the Beagles. He acted on a sudden inspiration. Within a week he had actually got together subscriptions and purchased two couples of beagles. But it is better to give the story in his own words, in extracts from his diary:

“Monday, Jan. 18th, 1858. Thought of getting up some Beagles.

“Tuesday, Jan. 19th. Got up £7 10s. for the Beagles.

“Thursday, Jan. 21st. Ran with Lawless and Hussey. Beagles. Bad run.

“Saturday, Jan. 23rd. Went with Vyner after 12 and bought two couples of Beagles. There were eight to choose from. We tried them all in a field. Gave £3 a couple for them. Ran a drag after 4, of four miles. I am huntsman, Johnstone mi. whip.”

All this is clear enough except the mention of Lawless and Hussey. Charrington’s pack was undoubtedly the nucleus of the Oppidan Hunt which existed till its amalgamation with the College Pack in 1866. But Lawless and Hussey kept a few Beagles at the same time. The present Lord Cloncurry, Valentine Lawless at Eton, has given me the following account of his Beagles and how they originated.

“I shall be glad if I can help in facts for your book about Eton and the Beagles, but after a lapse of more than sixty years it is not easy to write from memory without notes. Keeping dogs was an offence under strict school rules, though the rule had been often broken, and in Oct. 1857 or Feb. 1858 Dr. Goodford, who was then Head Master, invited me to breakfast at his house and to talk over the question of ‘Lower Boys frequenting Tap.’ As you know, ‘Tap’ was a private room in a public-house beyond Barnes Bridge where beer and mutton chops were served, and where drinking the ‘Long Glass’ and other time-honoured customs were maintained.

“Dr. Goodford proposed that, if I (as Captain of the Boats) would put up a notice in Tap, ‘that no Lower Boys be admitted to this room,’ he would withdraw the rules against dogs so far as to authorise the College Beagles and he would give recognition and assistance. My notice remained on the wall in ‘Tap’ for thirty years, it may be there now for all I know. As Captain of the Boats, I became nominal Head of the Hunt, but I was a bad runner, and a long-legged boy named Hussey, stroke oar of the ‘Victory,’ became the real Master and Huntsman of the first official Beagles. Before that time, Beach in 1854, and Charrington later, had kept a few couples.”

Col. Meysey-Thompson of Westwood Mount, Scarborough, has given me most of my knowledge regarding Charrington and the rival pack of Lawless and Hussey. He says in one letter:

“I have a hazy idea that Hussey had three or four Beagles, but he did not do much with them. Nor did in fact Charrington or the Edwards’ (a third rival pack about which I know nothing). They pottered about with them, though Charrington’s pack was a little more pretentious. But they were not recognised by the Masters of Eton; only about seven or eight of Charrington’s personal friends knew that they existed. It was some time before the Beagles were allowed, and I can remember conversations that took place with Balston before they became a permanent institution.”

Again in a letter to the late Vice-Provost (F. H. Rawlins) in 1899 Col. Meysey-Thompson says:

“Although Charrington kept a few rather nondescript hounds in 1859 (and 1858), they were not really looked upon as a school pack, and had not much more title to this description than those kept at the same time by another boy ‘Edwards,’ both packs hunting anything and being taken out just when the whim of their owners seized them. Charrington’s, however, were undoubtedly the nucleus of the present hunt. I remember one hound he had that towered over the others, and was so very much faster that he always had a short belt buckled round his neck somewhat to assimilate his pace to that of his comrades, but even then he was usually about a quarter of a mile ahead.”

In another letter he writes: “The fact is that in the early years—certainly up to 1861—it was a rather scratch affair. ‘Joby’ acted very often as huntsman or whip, and those who were so called ‘whips’ scarcely received a formal appointment at first, but had the whips handed over to them at the meet.”

W. T. Trench, the Master in 1862, wrote to the late Vice-Provost a letter in which he questions Charrington’s position as the first Oppidan Master. I quote from his letter, but I think his evidence is overborne, and that there is little real doubt that the Eton Beagles owe their existence to the zeal and enthusiasm of Charrington and his College contemporary, R. H. Carter (about whom more anon). He says:

“The Eton College Chronicle which you sent me woke up many memories of the good old Eton days. I think the Chronicle is wrong as to Charrington having been the first Oppidan Master. The present Lord Cloncurry (then Valentine Lawless) and Hussey got up Beagles in 1858. I don’t think there were more than two or three couples. Charrington’s was a rival pack. He and his supporters hunted sub rosa. No one except a few privileged ones knew where they met. Lawless and Hussey were high up in the School then, Charrington and his lot much lower down.”

On more than one occasion Charrington combined forces with Lawless, sometimes with considerable success. The combined meets attracted a big Field, which proved that the interest in the Beagles was rapidly growing. Here is an entry from Charrington’s diary:

“Tuesday, 9th of Feb. 1858. Wh. Hol. I bought a hare. Got her from Ipswich and joined packs with Hussey. Met at Sanatorium and turned her out; over a hundred fellows out. Hussey hunted the hounds. Ran her to Chalvey and lost her there.”

But, whatever the footing of Lawless and Hussey, it is to Charrington that we owe the Oppidan Beagles. His was a subscription pack of 8½ couples of hounds. His subscriptions in 1858 we do not know, but his 1859 funds amounted to no less than £52 10s. Thus the hunt was placed on a sound business footing.

Considering the inconveniences, the sport was apparently good. There were terrible difficulties. There used to be Chapel at 3 o’clock for all, and after 12 was too short altogether for a pack of Beagles to wear down a hare.

Col. Meysey-Thompson writes:

“It should not be forgotten what a very limited time we had in which to reach the kennels, get the pack out, find a hare, return with the hounds to the kennels (the Master and Whips), and be ‘changed’ and either in school or Chapel by 3 p.m.—missing our dinners sometimes. When there was ‘Absence’ it was worse, for we had to be there, and I remember on one occasion Balston finding fault because so many boys were late for Absence, and I pointed out to him that we the Whips were there, although we had had to go to the kennels, a long distance out of the homeward path, so that the others should have been there too if they had hurried up. He accepted this plea. We never got out of school till 11.45, and were supposed to be at dinner by 2 p.m. In the afternoon when there was ‘short’ Chapel we did not get out of Chapel till 3.20, had to change and have one run and be in by lock-up, which of course was early. I sometimes wonder how we did it, when perhaps we had run very nearly to Maidenhead. It was the getting back which was the crux.”

The pack was kennelled near the Dorney Road beyond the Sanatorium, the kennel huntsman being Alf Joel, Joby Minor as he was called. There is always a Joby at Eton, and this one undertook the duties of kennel huntsman. Charrington used to give him various sums of money (he had no fixed salary), for which he fed and housed the hounds.

Charringon’s Beagles hunted anything; a bagged fox, which resided at the kennels “within earshot of the musical harmony of his relentless pursuers,” an occasional bagged hare; innumerable bagged rabbits, which invariably met with untimely ends; a drag, usually a hare-skin, and anything else which presented itself.

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