2 I 2 APPENDIX 



things hawking, was a passion with him ; in more than one of 

 his portraits he is represented as a falconer or engaged in 

 hawking ; hence on leaving Glasgow he soon took up his 

 quarters at the family place in Yorkshire, Old Thornville, and 

 busied himself about the congenial task of laying the founda- 

 tions of the sporting establishment with which his name is 

 associated. He joined the West York Militia of which he 

 ultimately became Colonel and, in pursuance of his favourite 

 scheme to bring hawking to perfection, formed a Falconers' 

 Club. He kept a pack of foxhounds, hunting them himself, 

 and was a familiar figure on the turf both as an owner and 

 rider. His bodily activity was remarkable and he delighted 

 in athletic feats ; he was an excellent shot with gun and 

 rifle, and a good fisherman. About 1785 he appeared to 

 have made a sporting tour in the Scottish Highlands ; and so 

 pleased was he with the experience, that in the following 

 year he organised the formidable expedition whose events are 

 recorded with minuteness and detail in A Sporting Tour, a 

 work which has recently been republished by Mr. Edward 

 Arnold. It was on this expedition that George Garrard 

 accompanied him as his " special artist." It is to be observed 

 that the Colonel gave his voluminous diaries to an old school- 

 fellow who was in distress, and whose necessities, it appears, 

 the proceeds of the work went to relieve. In 1789 Colonel 

 Thornton purchased from the Duke of York, Allerton Maul- 

 evrer, which he afterwards renamed Thornville Royal, paying 

 for the estate £"i 10,000 which it is said he had won from the 

 Duke and others in gambling transactions. As the standing 

 crops hindered hawking from Thornville Royal, he built a 

 house on the Wolds near Baythorpe, about twelve miles 

 from Scarborough, and when he was in residence here, the 

 place became the scene of sport on a scale of mediaeval 

 magnificence ; the revels, for the word is not misused, were 

 sometimes continued for three or four weeks in succession, 

 the guests being entertained with hunting, hawking, and 

 coursing every day, and with the most sumptuous banquets 

 at night. Early in 1803, for example, the programme for a 



