UO Sir Walter GUbey, Bart. 



shareboldei'S. Good stallions were purchased, and the share- 

 holders had the use of them for their mares, with the result 

 that before the company was wound up a distinct improvement 

 was observable in the stock of the neighbourhood. A succes- 

 sion of bad seasons was the immediate cause of the end of the 

 Bishop's Stortford Company, and, a shrewd man of business 

 being the leading spirit, the undertaking was dissolved under 

 conditions advantageous to the shareholders, Gilbey himself 

 purchased two stallions, one of them being Spark, and therewith 

 laid the foundation of the Elsenham stud of shires. 



The scarcity and cost of powerful horses for agricultural 

 work was a matter that remained with him as a thing to be 

 dealt with by organised endeavour, and in 1878 he, with the 

 co-operation of a few others, founded the body which for the 

 first six years of its existence was known as the English Cart 

 Horse society. He was a Member of the first Council, and in 

 1883 he occupied the President's chair. The history of any 

 subject always possessed fascination for him ; and it was his 

 knowledge of the history of heavy horses that led him in 1884 

 to urge the claims of the title " Shire Horse Society " upon his 

 fellow workers. The enterprise was a success from the first. 

 The value of the Society's labours were soon recognised, and 

 the late Duke of Cambridge voiced the general feeling of the 

 agricultural world when, in presenting the founder with the 

 Challenge Cup and Gold Medal at the Show of 1883, he thanked 

 him for a " national service." 



In 1883 he bore a leading part in the establishment of the 

 Hackney Horse Society. The circumstance that England was 

 to a large extent dependent on France and Germany for 

 carriage horses bred to type was a potent factor in leading his 

 thoughts in this direction. Persuaded as he was that English 

 breeders, if they went the right way to work, could produce 

 carriage horses as good as any brought from the Continent, he 

 spared no effort to preach the merits of the old breed of 

 harness horse, and set example by founding the Elsenham 

 Hackney stud. Mention of his stud of hackneys recalls his 

 spirited purchase of the famous sire Danegelt, for which he 

 paid 5,000/., when American buyers would have secured what 

 was admittedly the best hackney stallion in the country. 



His other work in connection with horse interests may be 

 briefly summarised. In 1885 he realised in practical shape his 

 scheme for inducing the drivers of horses in London to take 

 greater interest in their charges, when, with the collaboration 

 of the Baroness Burdett Coutts, he founded the London Cart 

 Horse Parade Society, which holds its meeting every Whit 

 Monday in the Inner Circle of Regent's Park. Battersea Park 

 was the scene of the parade for the first three years, but the 



