A HISTORY OF RUTLAND to hold a hundred couple of hounds, with stabling for fifty horses, besides houses for the huntsman, whips, and stud groom, were built by the mem- bers of the hunt, in the vale between Ashwell and Oakham. Mr. Baird bred mainly from the Brocklesby, Fitzwilliam, and Belvoir strains, with the object of getting p.ice and smartness. He mounted his staff on a good stamp of hunter, short-tailed horses of a wear-and-tear pattern, with good backs and legs. The new huntsman, George Gillson, had been whip to the Quorn. Promotion came to him when Lord Ferrers gave him the offer to carry the horn for a pack of hounds hunting on the Donnington side of the Quorn country. But this pack w.-is dispersed when the Quorn claimed this slice of country to themselves, and Gillson migrated to the York and Ainsty. Here he remained until Mr. William Baird gave him the appointment of huntsman to the Cottesmore in 1888, with beneficial results to the breeding of the pack. George Gillson in the field was a sound con- sistent huntsman of the old school, a contempo- rary of Tom Firr and Frank Gillard. When Mr. Baird decided to relinquish the mastership in 1900 George Gillson laid down the horn to take a well-earned rest, which unfortunately he did not live long to enjoy. To bring the Cot- tesmore kennel up to its full strength Mr. Baird purchased for £$00 half of Captain Johnstone's hounds, which had hunted in the Yorkshire country round Scarborough and were bred on Belvoir lines. Mr. Wroughton of the Wood- land Pytchley purchased the other half of the pack. Numerous subscribers in the country presented Mr. Baird on his retirement with a life-size equestrian portrait of himself by John Charlton, which was exhibited in the Royal Academy. The presentation was made by the Earl of An- caster, chairman of the hunt committee. Mr. Baird's successor in 1900 was Mr. Evan Hanbury of Braunston by Oakham, a well- known follower and bold rider with the Leices- tershire packs and already identified with the county of Rutland by his marriage with the second daughter of the late Right Hon. George Finch of Burley on the Hill. The new huntsman was Arthur Thatcher, who had made his mark in eight years' service whipping-in to Mr. Fernie's. A faster era of sport distinguished Mr. Hanbury 's mastership, which attracted large fields representative of the best known people in the world of fox-hunting. Latterly, the pack appearing to be lacking somewhat in bone and ribs at the expense of quality, Lord Fitzhardinge's sires were used to get bigger bone and stuff. With Arthur Thatcher as huntsman the Cottesmore was quite the most popular pack in the shires, and Mr. Evan Hanbury 's seven seasons of mastership produced a record of exceptionally fine sport. On his resignation a general meeting of subscribers was held at Oakham in the spring of 1907, and the only name put forward for the mastership was that of Hugh Cecil, fifth Earl of Lonsdale, who was unanimously elected master. That the Cottesmore should again be ruled by one of a family in which the mastership had been held for so many years was a cause of great congratulation to the whole country side. Arthur Thatcher resigned to go as huntsman to Mr. Fernie, and Lord Lonsdale's choice fell on Sam Gillson, son of the famous Cottesmore huntsman in Mr. Baird's time. Sam Gillson served his apprenticeship as whipper-in to the Belvoir, first under Frank Gillard and afterwards under Ben Capell, and came to the Cottesmore after carrying the horn for the Bedale Hunt in Yorkshire. The hunt stables were filled with over a hun- dred hunters to carry the master and hunt staff; they were all chestnuts, and of a thoroughbred pattern with long tails and their manes cut off. It has always been a rule with Lord Lonsdale to have in his kennel the best hounds procurable, and his first care on taking up the mastership of the Cottesmore was to purchase a pack of fifteen couples of bitches, bred by Mr. Reginald Corbet, and hunted by him in the North Cheshire country. The fame of these hounds in their work was well known, and Lord Lonsdale paid as much as 125 guineas each for two of the number, named Hecuba and Warcry, sired re- spectively by Belvoir Helper and Warwickshire Sampson from South Cheshire bitches. Tarnish, another beautiful bitch in the pack, bred Sampler, a young dog which won the championship at Peterborough for the Hertfordshire in July 1907. The full price of the purchase was over 2,000 guineas, the combined sixty-four couples placing the Cottesmore kennel in the front rank of the kennels of the day. The foundation of the new purchase was Belvoir and Warwickshire blood, without crosses to Lord Portsmouth and the Oakley, being further strengthened by the pur- chase from Mr. Corbet of the young entry of 1908. The reign of the new master opened most auspiciously with a run right at the beginning of the season that left nothing to be desired on the score of pace, direction, and finish. The meet was on 31 October 1907 at the 'Noel Arms,' near to Loddington, and hounds ran an 8-mile point in fifty-eight minutes, finding at the spinney by Leesthorpe and finally killing their fox handsomely in the open before he could reach Owston Bog Wood. During the season 1907—8 scent was very in- different, and the state of the going most of the time very heavy owing to the continuous wet weather. When Sam Gillson was laid up for 304
