CHAPTER IV 



MR. GEORGE OSBALDESTON 



1817-1821, 1823-1827 



MR. OSBALDESTON, like his predecessor, to 

 whom he was eleven years junior in age, was 

 born in London (Wimpole Street) on Boxing Day, 

 1787, and after some experience with harriers, which 

 occasionally ran foxes, in 1809 or 18 10 became master 

 of the Burton country, buying the hounds of the fourth 

 Lord Monson. In 18 14 he migrated to the South Notts 

 district, and after admitting that it was a most difficult 

 country in which to kill foxes, left at the end of his first 

 season to take the Atherstone country, of which he may 

 be said to have been the first master, for then it was 

 that the Atherstone became a really separate hunt. 

 After two years there he succeeded Mr. Assheton Smith 

 at Ouorndon as the sixth master of the Ouorn. 



Mr. Osbaldeston came to Quorn with a great 

 reputation for hound-breeding skill, horsemanship, and 

 keenness in general, and the reputation was by no 

 means undeserved. One who saw his hounds durino- 

 his first mastership wrote that they were a very perfect 

 pack — all of one size, of one colour, of the same form 

 and general character, and showed more blood than any 

 other hounds, while they appeared to be less than their 

 real height ; the last mentioned being, of course, a 

 compliment to their symmetry. Somehow or other, 

 however, Mr. Osbaldeston could not manage to please 



103 



