114 EVOLUTION OF BRITISH CATTLE 



Leicester."^ He was come of a family dis- 

 tinguished for centuries in both Church and State. 

 " The most remote ancestor named in the records 

 of the family was Leverrettus, Thane of the 

 King, and King's Chancellor in the reign of 

 Henry II., presented to the rectory of Bakewell, 

 in the county of Derby, in the year 1158." The 

 Grange farm was 440 acres in extent, and Bake- 

 well's father, who had always the reputation of 

 being one "of the most ingenious and able 

 farmers of his neighbourhood," died in 1773, 

 when he was 88 years old, and when Bakewell 

 was 47. It is thus possible that some part of 

 Bakewell's work may have been traceable in 

 knowledge, thought, or action to his father. At 

 least, in their improvements, other than those 

 connected with stock-breeding, there was a clear 

 continuity. 



Prothero, in his *' Pioneers and Progress," 

 tells us that Robert Bakewell "resembled the 

 typical yeoman who figures on Staffordshire 

 pottery, ' a tall, broad-shouldered, stout man, of 

 brown-red complexion, clad in a loose brown 

 coat and scarlet waistcoat, leather breeches, and 

 top boots.' In his kitchen he entertained 

 Russian princes, French and German royal 

 dukes, British peers, and sightseers of every 



1 The information about Bakewell is drawn mostly from a 

 paper by W. Housman in The Journal of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society of England lox 1896. 



