CAPTAIN GEORGE WARWICK HUNT 



A NAME that was as familiar as it was popular, not only 

 throughout the service of which he was so distinguished 

 an ornament, but the entire sporting world, more particularly 

 that portion of it devoted to the Turf, in the sixties and 

 seventies of the past century, was that of the gallant soldier named 

 above, known alternately as "Jonas" or "Balaclava" Hunt. 



Born near Plymouth in 1833, his mother being a daughter 

 of Admiral Linzee, after completing his education, he was 

 gazetted in the first instance to the 12th Lancers, and it was 

 only by a great piece of luck that he did not accompany 

 that regiment on board the Birkenhead when it sailed on its 

 ill-starred voyage. As it was, the Colonel of the 4th Light 

 Dragoons, who had formed a very high opinion of the young 

 officer, and was anxious to have him with him, managed to 

 procure his transfer to his own corps, just in time, as it 

 turned out, to save him from a watery grave ; a providential 

 escape which earned for him the sobriquet of "Jonas" — a 

 rendering of " Jonah." * 



In 1854 he sailed with the regiment to the Crimea — a 

 period of his life which he always declared to the end of 

 his days he enjoyed better than any ; nor was it long before 

 he proved himself worthy of the high estimate his Colonel 

 had formed of his courage and resource, by an act of heroism 

 in the historic Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, 

 which for coolness and audacity has probably never been 



* Not long before his death, Captain Hunt, on the lawn at Sandown, was asked 

 by a lady with him, who a very infirm and decrepit sportsman he had just nodded to, 

 was. " Odd you should have asked that," replied " Jonas," " for he was the officer who 

 took my place on the Birkenhead^ and was the only one saved." 



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