CHAPTER NINE

FOXHUNTING GALLOPS ON BETWEEN THE WARS

In 'tween war years came emancipation,

And bright young things loved the sensation

Of riding bold horses o'er natural fences,

A guaranteed method of thrilling the senses.

So foxhunting prospered from the year nineteen twenty,

And offered the flappers excitement aplenty.

For the Shires still resembled an ocean of grass,

Attracting, among others, the nouveau class

Who hoped it would be just the thing

To hunt as chums of a future King.

Yet even in Hunts much in the fashion

There were still so many who hunted with passion.

Whether or not they liked social scenery -

Their ultimate aim was enjoying the venery.

DESPITE the initial shortage of horses and hounds, foxhunting recovered remarkably quickly following the Great War. It was to enjoy another extraordinary rise in its fortunes while the 'sea of grass' in the Midlands was still largely in place. The desperate agricultural depression of the between-the-wars years ensured that, for all the wrong reasons, there was all too much land ill-farmed, or left fallow, which produced a wilderness entirely suitable for foxhunting.

Against a background of falling trade and soaring unemployment, hunting in its traditional form managed to produce recreation for an ever widening cross-section of society in most provincial hunting countries. However, the spotlight was on the Bright Young Things who flocked back to the Shires for two decades of fashionable elitist foxhunting. There was a rather desperate gaiety for the minority able to enjoy the full social season in the 'twenties and 'thirties.

More generally, people who had no immediate family background of hunting began to take up the Chase. After the horrors of the Great War, many found the hunting field a solace from growing twentieth century pressures. Hunts had to maintain access to land, which was increasingly owned by newcomers to the country, who would be made very welcome out hunting. Farmers were rarely charged a subscription, although some would walk puppies or help the Hunt in other ways.

The hunting field swiftly reflected the growing emancipation of women and by the 1930s many of the ladies changed to riding astride. There had been major adjustments to side-saddle riding since early Victorian ladies had ridden in voluminous habits, which were all-too-likely to get caught up in the saddle in the event of a fall, often contributing to serious injuries or fatalities. Better saddles and the so-called 'safety release' riding habit skirt helped and this elegant form of riding continued to be used by some women throughout the twentieth century.

However, the emancipated flapper, who smoked and wore shorter skirts, was not so bothered by the issue of modesty. She wanted to ride across country effectively, competing with men, and chose to wear breeches and boots to use the astride saddle.

As well as more ladies riding astride, the 1920s and '30s increasingly saw the arrival of the motor car as a means of transport to the meets and some of the first motorised horse boxes to convey hunters. However, cars were still strongly discouraged from following the Hunt, although in later years car followers were to become valued supporters of foxhunting and the horse box enabled the sport to survive when some roads got too busy for horses to safely be ridden on them.

Leicestershire remained the centre of fashionable foxhunting with the Quorn, Belvoir and Cottesmore all meeting within riding distance of Melton Mowbray, from where it was possible to hunt six days a week. The country was still down to grass, with glorious fences and timber, enabling the followers to spread out and take their own line, jumping anywhere.

Edward Prince of Wales hunted from Melton, taking a suite at Craven Lodge, which had become a residential club for hunting people and their horses. He was an enthusiastic rider to hounds and relished the social life of Melton as much as the Chase. It was at Burrough Court, just south of Melton, that he met Mrs Wallis Simpson for whom he was to abdicate the throne as Edward VIII. His brothers, Prince George (Duke of Kent) and Prince Henry (Duke of Gloucester) also stayed at Craven Lodge and hunted. The much less rackety Duke of York, later King George VI, was an excellent horseman and sometimes hunted from Melton, but after his marriage to Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, they took a hunting box in the Pytchley country for several years in the 1930s, the Duke hunting with the famous Pytchley white collars over a stiff country that was arguably more formidable than the Melton terrain.

Providing and maintaining hunters, clothes and catering all helped to boost the Leicestershire rural economy at a time when farming was hard hit by the depression. Selling fodder and bedding for horses, rearing and selling hunters, were valuable adjuncts to farming in many hunting countries.

Most British foxhound packs were formed in the 18th and 19th centuries, with roots much further back. It was evidence of foxhunting's revival after the Great War that some new Hunts were born.

The College Valley Hunt in Northumberland was founded in 1924 by Sir Alfred Goodson. He remained as Master for 40 years, breeding a unique pack of Fell-Cross hounds to hunt the wild steep country of the Cheviot Hills that had previously not been considered worthy of hunting by the Duke of Buccleuch's and North Northumberland Hunts. Under the wise stewardship of the subsequent Mastership of Martin Letts, College Valley blood remains much sought-after and widely used today.

The Enfield Chace was formed in 1935, just north of London, where several of its meets could be reached by underground line or London red bus. The remaining huntable country now forms part of the Cambridgeshire. Having originally been hunted by a harrier pack, the Ashford Valley in Kent was formed in 1922 as a foxhound pack and survives to this day.

The seeds of foxhunting's postwar future were being sown throughout most of England and Wales in the 'twenties and 'thirties. One of the most significant happenings was the succession of the 10th Duke of Beaufort in 1924. As Master of the family pack of foxhounds at his ancestral home of Badminton in Gloucestershire, he was to give leadership to the foxhunting world for most of the 20th century, not least by setting high standards as a creative hound breeder and gifted huntsman.

Born in 1900, he was known as 'Master' since the age of eleven, when his father gave him a pack of harriers. His friends and relatives jokingly called the boy 'Master' and it remained a life long nickname. Hunting in the Beaufort country in the 1920s and 1930s was different from the Shires in that most of the followers were residents in the country, wearing the distinctive 'blue and buff' coats, while the Hunt staff wore the Beaufort family livery of green. Hunting was of the very highest standard, with the famous Badminton hounds the priority, becoming central to the controversial changes in hound breeding in which the Duke was an important and influential figure.

There were several great huntsmen, both amateur and professional, hunting hounds between the wars. Arthur Thatcher was hunting the Fernie until 1923 and was famous for being highly criticised by Lord Lonsdale, his Master at the Cottesmore before the First War, who accused him of constantly changing foxes and of being a 'headless huntsman'. However, although he was undoubtedly a 'showman huntsman', he was hailed by nearly everyone in Leicestershire as being a huge success and he certainly caught foxes in addition to providing supremely entertaining hunting.

Frank Freeman hunted the Pytchley from 1906 to 1931 and was undoubtedly a truly great huntsman. He was a purist, a hard task master on his staff, and concentrated entirely on hunting and catching his fox. He liked racy, active hounds - unfashionable at the time - and the Duke of Beaufort wrote in his forward to Freeman's biography: 'Frank Freeman, with his pack of Pytchley bitches, and Lord Annaly as Master, were probably the greatest combination for showing sport that the foxhunting world has ever known. Their era came at the end of the Golden Age of foxhunting and set a standard that has never been, and I fear never will be, equalled again.'

On Freeman's last day as huntsman, on 4th April 1931, the Duke of York had asked that his little daughter should be introduced to hunting by the greatest huntsman. By arrangement, the Princess on her pony, led by a groom and accompanied by the Duchess on foot, waited at Boughton Covert, which Freeman drew on his way home. They found immediately and a glorious dog fox jumped over the wall bounding the covert, ran diagonally in...