2 THE ETON COLLEGE HUNT, 



Valentine Lawless at Eton, has given me the following account 

 of his Beagles and how they originated. 



'' I shall be glad if I can help in facts for your book about 

 Eton and the Beagles, but after a lapse of more than sixty years 

 it is not easy to write from memory without notes. Keeping 

 dogs was an offence under strict school rules, though the rule 

 had been often broken, and in Oct. 1857 or Feb. 1858 

 Dr. Goodford, who was then Head Master, invited me to 

 breakfast at his house and to talk over the question of ' Lower 

 Boys frequenting Tap.' As you know, 'Tap' was a private 

 room in a public-house beyond Barnes Bridge where beer and 

 mutton chops were served, and where drinking the ' Long 

 Glass ' and other time-honoured customs were maintained. 



*' Dr. Goodford proposed that, if I (as Captain of the Boats) 

 would put up a notice in Tap, ' that no Lower Boys be admitted 

 to this room,' he would withdraw the rules against dogs so far 

 as to authorise the College Beagles and he would give recognition 

 and assistance. My notice remained on the wall in ' Tap ' for 

 thirty years, it may be there now for all I know. As Captain 

 of the Boats, I became nominal Head of the Hunt, but I was a 

 bad runner, and a long-legged boy named Hussey, stroke oar of 

 the ' Victory,' became the real Master and Huntsman of the tirst 

 official Beagles. Before that time. Beach in 1854, and 

 Charrington later, had kept a few couples." 



Col. Meysey-Thompson of Westwood Mount, Scarborough, 

 has given me most of my knowledge regarding Charrington and 

 the rival pack of Lawless and Hussey. He says in one letter : 



" I have a hazy idea that Hussey had three or four Beagles, 

 but he did not do much with them. Nor did in fact Charrington 

 or the Edwards' (a third rival pack about which I know nothing). 

 They pottered about with them, though Charrington 's pack 

 was a little more pretentious. But they were not recognised by 

 the Masters of Eton ; only about seven or eight of Charrington 's 

 personal friends knew that they existed."^ It was some time 

 before the Beagles were allowed, and I can remember conversa- 

 tions that took place with Balston before they became a 

 permanent institution." 



Again in a letter to the late Vice-Provost (F. H. Rawlins) in 

 1899 Col. jMeysey-Thompson says : 



*' Although Charrington kept a few rather nondescript 

 hounds in 1859 (and 1858), they were not really looked upon 

 as a school pack, and had not much more title to this description 



*As a matter of fact this is incorrect. The actual number of subscribers 

 in 1859 was 58. 



