THE GREAT WAR PERIOD 



some cases more during the ten years following the 

 last Great War. But then farmers were not the only 

 people who received these great shocks. 



At the close of the War Jimmy White, the great 

 financier, appeared in our neighbourhood. Rumour 

 had it that he was a millionaire, and there is no 

 doubt he was. I believe he started life as a stone- 

 mason, and like most men of courage he seized the 

 opportunity during the War years to keep buying 

 anything that came along, whether it was cotton 

 mills, theatres, and, I presume, stocks and shares of 

 every description, and like all these men when they 

 acquire great wealth, they must have a racing stud 

 with a country estate. At the time Foxhill and 

 King Edward Place were both vacant. Robinson 

 had died towards the end of the War, and Metcalf 

 was killed in the front trenches of France during 

 1918. 



All this property I believe Jimmy White bought 

 at a low figure, racing having dwindled to a very 

 low ebb during the War years, but it was rather 

 amazing how quickly it got going again. 



During the summer of 19 19 I can remember 

 spending an afternoon with Harry Cottrill at Bath 

 Races — he, I believe, was a temporary tenant of 

 Foxhill at the time — -just to find out whether Jimmy 

 White had a keen appetite to buy the adjoining 

 farms to his racing property. Being well assured 

 that he was a man of wealth with keen desire to in- 

 vest in farming, I was very well satisfied with my 

 little journey to Bath. 



During the following weeks negotiations were put 



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