Colonel Hnstrutber TTbomson 28 1 



to the Charleton estate, was for many years Master of 

 the Fife Hounds, and at the age of thirteen the son 

 was regularly entered to the sport at Dunraden by John 

 Walker, one of the most famous of Scottish huntsmen. 

 When his school-days at Eton were over, young 

 Anstruther Thomson travelled on the Continent with 

 a tutor, and in March 1836 joined the 9th Lancers, a 

 regiment which prided itself on its hunting renown, 

 and numbered at that time amongst its officers some 

 of the finest riders in the three kingdoms. The young 

 cornet soon showed that he could hold his ow^n with the 

 best of them as a horseman, whilst in keenness for the 

 sport he surpassed them all. For, when the regiment 

 was ordered to India, rather than forego the delights of 

 the hunting-field, he exchanged into the 13th Light 

 Dragoons, then quartered at Ipswich, and there started 

 a pack of staghounds with his Colonel as zuhipper-in, 

 with which he showed grand sport. His next quarters 

 were at Hampton Court, and there he hunted a pack 

 of beagles, with which he drove the market-gardeners 

 of Brentford into open revolt ; for, there was an old 

 jack-hare which made those gardens his haunt and twice 

 defied all the efforts of the pack to kill him. But the 

 persevering Scot, not to be beaten, and regardless of the 

 uproar among the gardeners, went for his quarry for the 

 third time and killed him. After which the market- 

 gardens had peace. 



When the regiment was ordered to Exeter Mr 

 Anstruther Thomson had his beagles carted thither and 

 made things warm for the Devonshire hares. He also 

 hunted with Mr Russell's foxhounds, and was in the 

 memorable run through seventeen parishes when they ran 

 their fox from 12.30 to 5 P.M. before they killed him. 



