THE DAYS OF MY YOUTH 



The Porter family had been settled at Rugeley, 

 in Staffordshire, more than a hundred years when 

 I was born there March 2, 1838. In those days 

 the development of the Cannock Chase coalfield, 

 two or three miles westward of Rugeley, was just 

 beginning. That development has resulted in 

 the district undergoing a great change. When I 

 was a boy the Chase was a wilderness and the haunt 

 of many species of game birds; but it also provided 

 excellent gallops for the racehorses located at 

 Hednesford, locally called ** Hedgeford." 



My father, John Porter, was friendly with 

 several of the Hednesford trainers, more especi- 

 ally Saunders and Walters. The latter, who had 

 the care of the horses owned by Alderman Cope- 

 land, of Copeland china fame, was one of my 

 godfathers, the other being Charles Marlow, 

 the jockey who rode The Flying Dutchman to 

 victory in the Derby of 1849. ^^ ^ boy I was 

 associated with Tom Ashmall, who won the Two 

 Thousand Guineas on The Wizard in 1861, 

 for he and I were schoolmates at Rugeley. Tom's 



