168 THE NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE HOUNDS. 



was when, after jumping into a gravel pit, slie was so 

 flustered by the drop that she fell at the next fence and 

 broke her rider's thumb. There are some who still re- 

 member the jolly figure of "Ned" Kendrick, as he was 

 generally called, always in a green coat and velvet cap, 

 with rubicund face and grey locks, invariably in a good 

 place, and determined to keep it — full of life and go. He 

 died in 1877, and was almost the last of his type in the 

 North Staffordshire country. He had hunted with the 

 North Staffordshire Hounds for over fifty years. He was 

 not only a good, bold horseman, but he rode with judg- 

 ment and discretion, and with a wonderful knowledge of 

 the country. About the same period there was Josephs, 

 of Clifford's Wood, a great "pal" of Kendrick's, and of 

 the same hard riding old-fashioned type, who could always 

 give a good account of himself. William Collins, of Toft, 

 was another of the same sort, also a tenant of the Duke of 

 Sutherland's, who generally had a good horse or two going, 

 and knew how to see the fun as well as most. The writer 

 remembers, too, John Astbury, of Oulton, a yeoman 

 sportsman who went as well as most of his contemporaries 

 in Mr. Davenport's time, but who has long since been 

 gathered to his fathers. In somewhat later times there 

 was a hard old farmer, Thomas Weston, of the Waste 

 Farm, Draycot, who managed to see a good deal of sport 

 l^oth with the North Staffordshire and the Meynell, and 

 who knew his way across country, and held his own fairly 

 well, though never particularly well mounted. 



The writer remembers him on one occasion falling in 

 with our hounds on his way home on horseback from a 

 funeral, adorned with the hideous hatband and scarf, which 

 were the inevitable appendage of funerals at that time. 

 The ruling passion was strong within him, and it was 

 a strange sight to see the old fellow following the hounds 

 in this weird costume, his hatband flying about as he took 

 the fences gallantly as they came, determined, if possible, 

 to attend two funerals in one day, and, if we are not mis- 

 taken, succeeding in bringing off the double event. He 



