4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



fortunately for fox-hunting and fox-hunters, the '* call of 

 the chase " proved more alluring, and the possibility of sit- 

 ting on the " woolsack " was cheerfully abandoned for the 

 supreme delight of sitting, and sitting tight, in the pigskin ! 

 Mr. Tailby acquired the Skeffington and Welham pro- 

 perties in i860, and took up his residence at Skeffington 

 Hall the following year, having been High Sheriff of 

 the County in 1856. He married, gth October 1850, 

 Mary, daughter of Wm. Taylor Esq., of Humberstone 

 Lodge, CO. Leicester, and whilst in the very prime of 

 life (at the age of 31), of a height and weight that would 

 have rendered him eligible to ride in the Leger, circum- 

 stances (hereinafter related) transpired which afforded 

 Mr. Tailby the opportunity to adopt for six months out of 

 twelve a career for which by nature and temperament it 

 must be admitted he was admirably adapted. 



The rest of the year he devoted to the management of 

 his estate, hospitality to his friends and neighbours, and 

 other social obligations, including the regular performance 

 of the duties of a County Magistrate. 



Attention may appropriately here be drawn to the fact 

 that at that period, although a manufacturing town of 

 important proportions, Leicester had not then attained such 

 considerable dimensions as, through the great increase of 

 its trade and manufactures, it has since assumed; indeed, in 

 many respects the streets more closely resembled a country 

 market town, than the thronged highways of a great city. 

 As the centre of a large grazing and dairy country, pastoral 

 interests were much more " en evidence," not only upon 

 such periodical occasions as the horse, cattle, sheep, wool 

 and cheese fairs, which were then of considerable import- 

 ance and largely attended, but each market day witnessed 

 a large influx of the country element into the town, which 

 moreover, was not too large to render it undesirable for 

 hunting men, who, by reason of its greater railway facilities, 

 could from this centre hunt with three or four packs. 

 Hence the principal hotels, notably the " Bell " and the 

 ** Three Crowns " (the latter stood at the corner of Horse- 



