338 Itfnas of tbe ffiofc, ftifle, anb (Bun 



story of his life knew that he was a most notable man 

 a brilliant explorer, a true pioneer of civilisation, the 

 greatest hunter of modern times, and/ar excellence " the 

 Nimrod of South Africa." 



Born at Leytonstone on April 27th, 1818, Oswell came 

 of good stock. His father was the third son of the Rev. 

 Thomas Oswell, of Oswestry, where the family had been 

 established for several generations. His mother was a 

 daughter of Joseph Cotton, a fine seaman and sometime 

 Master of the Trinity House, whose grandfather, Dr. 

 Nathaniel Cotton, was celebrated in his day as both a 

 poet and a physician. 



The boy was sent to school at Rugby, of which 

 Thomas Arnold, greatest of schoolmasters, had just 

 been appointed head. Here Tom Hughes first knew 

 him. But Oswell was five years the senior of the author 

 of " Tom Brown's School Days," and was looked up to 

 by the small boy as one of the " Kings of the Close," the 

 Hector of their school Iliad. I think Oswell's contem- 

 poraries at Rugby must have recognised some of his 

 characteristics in the heroic portrait of " Young Brooke." 

 Judge Hughes in his address (subsequently published in 

 Macmillaris Magazine) recalled some of his hero's 

 memorable athletic feats at school : how he cleared 

 1 8 feet 9 inches of water over Clifton Brook a good 

 21 feet with take-off and landing; how he threw the 

 cricket ball 105 yards ; and how his great strength 

 earned him the nick-name of the Muscleman." When 

 he left the school at eighteen he stood six feet, was broad 

 in the shoulder, thin in the flank, the perfect model of an 

 athlete. "A rare mixture," says Judge Hughes, "of 



