Mr. GEORGE OSBALDESTON 



" The Old Squire" 



Search the Annals of Sport from one end to the other, and 

 we defy any one, without fear of contradiction, to find a record 

 at once so varied and successful as that placed to the credit 

 of the remarkable man who forms the subject of this chapter. 



Nothing, in fact, seems to have come amiss to him, his 

 fame as a horseman, whether to hounds, or as a race and 

 steeplechase rider, being only equalled by his reputation as 

 an oarsman, cricketer, runner, game and pigeon shot, and 

 billiard player. In short, there was nothing man could master 

 in the way of sport he did not touch, and nothing he touched 

 without adorning it. 



The only son of a Yorkshire squire who owned two fine 

 estates at Hutton Bushell and Ebberston, between Malton 

 and Scarborough, Mr. George Osbaldeston was born on 

 December the 26th, 1787, at Wimpole Street, Cavendish 

 Square. His father having died in his son's infancy, Mrs. 

 Osbaldeston, when the latter was six years old, migrated to 

 Bath for her health, and it was when there that George had 

 his first lesson in horsemanship from a riding master named 

 Dash. 



In the year 1800 he was sent to Eton, where before long 

 he was known as the best runner, and oarsman, and swiftest 

 bowler in the school. In 1805, he was entered at Brasenose 

 College, Oxford, as a gentleman commoner, at which seat of 

 learning, he kept and hunted a pack of harriers, bought from 

 Lord Derby. 



On attaining his majority, fifteen years after his father's 



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