FAMOUS MASTERS 53 



MR. GEORGE FORESTER 



But, though the private Hves of the majority of 

 Masters of Hounds at the beginning of the century 

 were beyond reproach, yet it must be confessed that 

 some of them took advantage of the latitude which 

 was allowed to fox-hunting squires. The most notorious 

 of these was " Squire " George Forester, of Willey, yet 

 he was a thoroughbred specimen of a " fine old English 

 gentleman, who had a great estate," during the first 

 decade of the nineteenth century. He was like a moving 

 plant which receives its nourishment from the air, and 

 he lived chiefly through his senses. His passion for fox- 

 hunting was unbounded. He hunted the country from 

 the Clee Hills to the Wrekin in Shropshire, with the 

 famous Tom Moody as whipper-in, and with such 

 well-known associates as Mr. Dansey, Mr. Childe, 

 Mr. Stubbs, of Beckbury, Squire Boycott, of Rudge, 

 and Parson Stephens. The hospitality of the '* Willey " 

 Squire, as he was called, was unbounded. His home 

 at Willey has been immortalised by Dibdin as 

 " Bachelor's Hall." It is no exaggeration to say that 

 few names are better known in the annals of fox- 

 hunting than those of the Willey Squire and Tom 

 Moody. 



Was it not Thackeray who wrote : " The England of 

 our ancestors was a merrier England than the island 

 we inhabit?" In many respects it was a healthier 

 England, in spite of the hard-drinking customs of the 



