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lands and hereditaments of the late Earl came into the 

 possession of his sister's son Wenman Roberts, who took 

 the name of Coke. The eldest son of Wenman Roberts 

 Coke was Thomas William Coke, born in London on 

 May 6th, 1754. One of the boy's earliest recollections 

 was that of being brought to a window to see a fox 

 killed by Mr. Archer's hounds in Hanover Square \ 

 For those were days when Oxford Street was open on 

 one side to the country, and snipe were often flushed 

 and shot where Edgware road now commences. That 

 sight Thomas William never forgot. It stirred the 

 Nimrod spirit in him. From that moment he cherished 

 the ambition of becoming a Master of Fox-hounds, and 

 he did not rest till he had realised it. Fox-hunting was 

 a passion with him. When he came into his estates he 

 started a pack of his own, and for many years was 

 renowned as one of the most daring riders in England. 

 But much as he loved hunting, he loved shooting 

 more, at any rate in his later years. He was " entered 

 to " the gun (to use a hunting expression) at an early 

 age. When he was a boy he used to rise with the sun 

 to shoot, and Longford Hall, in Derbyshire, where he 

 was brought up, afforded him capital sport. Boys are 

 often better shots at snipe than men ; but not many 

 boys, I think, have equalled young Coke's feat of 

 shooting sixty snipe in a couple of days while he was yet 

 in his early teens. 



Thomas William's first visit to Holkham, of which he 

 was one day to be the master, took place just after he 

 had left Eton. He went there at the special invitation 

 of the Countess of Leicester, his great-aunt, who is 



