MR. DAVENPORT. 15 



kennels at Trentham. These had been built by the second 

 Duke of Sutherland for his son's sporting dogs, and with 

 some alterations and additions suggested by Mr. Davenport, 

 and carried out by the third Duke, they made excellent 

 foxhound kennels, and were lent by him to Mr. Davenport, 

 and afterwards to the hunt, and there the hounds remain 

 to the present day. The hunting fraternity in North 

 Stafibrdshire can never forget that they are under a great 

 obligation to Mr. Davenport for the care and judgment 

 and liberality with which he built up a splendid pack of 

 hounds, and for the handsome and liberal manner in which 

 he hunted the country for fully twenty-seven years, the 

 greater part of this time entirely at his own expense. It 

 is not too much to say that in the first few years of his 

 mastership he had got together a pack that would have 

 done credit to any hunt, and was in a position to breed 

 his own hounds, and became independent of having to 

 make up with large drafts from other packs. He seems to 

 have been anxious to retain the Fitzhardinge and Belvoir, 

 as well as the Cheshire, strains in his kennel, and not a year 

 passed without his making use of sires in one or more of 

 those well-known kennels, besides occasionally employing 

 sires of Lord Yarborough's, the Fitzwilliam, the Badminton, 

 Mr. Mey^icll's and other old-established packs. In 1862 

 a large and important addition was made by the incorpora- 

 tion of several couples from the Meynell pack, and this 

 was the last addition of much note under Mr. Davenport's 

 mastership, though he continued to the end to keep his 

 pack up to the pitch of excellence at which it had arrived 

 by careful breeding and judicious crossing with the best 

 blood in England. 



Mr. Davenport was most popular amongst all classes, 

 genial in his manner, exceedingly hospitable, a keen 

 sportsman of the good old-fashioned sort, and, till handi- 

 capped by increasing infirmities, a good man to hounds. 

 There was a good show of sport, and many excellent runs, 

 during Mr. Davenport's mastership, but the detailed 

 accounts of remarkable runs will come in more appropriately 



