Captain Townley 



Richard Greaves Townley, of Fulbourn Manor, near New- 

 market, for some years M.P. for Cambridgeshire, he was born 

 in 1826, and received his education at Eton and Trinity 

 College, Cambridge. After some time spent at the University, 

 where, as at Eton, he figured to advantage in the cricket 

 eleven, young Townley suddenly discovered that he had no 

 fancy for the clerical career mapped out for him by his father, 

 his own predilection being decidedly in favour of the army, 

 more especially the cavalry; a state of things with which, no 

 doubt, the fact of the paternal mansion being so handy to New- 

 market, added to his own natural love for the horse, and his 

 partiality to riding him, had a good deal to do. Accordingly, 

 a commission was obtained for him in the loth Hussars, 

 which gallant regiment he joined in India, in 1847, and it 

 was in this far-off land that his race-riding career virtually 

 commenced. 



A few months before his arrival in India the regiment had 

 the misfortune to lose their crack man. Lieutenant Wardrop, 

 through illness, and Colonel R. S. Liddell, in his interesting 

 memoirs of the " Tenth Hussars," after lamenting the circum- 

 stance, makes mention of their new acquisition in the following 

 terms : — 



" Not many months afterwards, however, the loth obtained 

 a distinguished successor as a racing celebrity in Lieutenant 

 Thomas Townley. 



"These two are mentioned, as they were justly considered 

 a good deal above the average in their attainments as race- 

 riders." 



War was declared with Russia in 1854, but it was not until 

 the nth of December, and consequently after the battle of 

 Balaclava, that the loth received orders to join the Army in 

 the Crimea. Accordingly, on the loth of January, 1855, the 



