CELEBRATED FALCONERS JOHN FROST 351 



to have been an old and highly valued servant. We believe 

 he was an Englishman. But we have to pass from that date 

 to 1870 before we again find an Englishman similarly well 

 qualified and in a position equally of trust, in the person of 

 John Frost, head-falconer to the Old Hawking Club. Being 

 the son of a keeper to Mr. Newcome, of Feltwell, Norfolk, 

 Frost was brought up from childhood among hawks, and 

 had the opportunity of learning the intricacies of the art, 

 not only from Mr. Newcome himself, but from Robert Barr 

 (to whom he acted as under-falconer at one time), and John 

 Pells, who lived at Lakenheath, hard by. In 1872 the present 

 writer engaged him for the Old Hawking Club as under- 

 falconer to John Barr, and in 1873 he was promoted to the 

 post of head-falconer, which he filled to the year 1890. 

 During that time he annually visited Holland to train the 

 freshly-caught hawks of the Club, and under Mollen and his 

 assistants had the opportunity to master the Dutch school 

 of falconry, just as his education under the Barrs started 

 him with an acquaintance with Scotch methods. Those 

 who have seen the sport shown by the Club hawks when under 

 his charge on Salisbury Plain and Yorkshire, in Kildare, Cork, 

 and Wexford, in Sutherland and Caithness, will know that the 

 art of falconry had in him an able English exponent. His 

 death, at the early age of thirty-six, occurred in September 

 1890, at Langwell in Caithness, where he was engaged in flying 

 his hawks on the moors of the Duke of Portland, one of his 

 employers. Those only who have participated in the sport 

 shown by the hawks under his care will realise what a loss the 

 ancient science of falconry has sustained by the death of one 

 so capable of demonstrating its practice both in the field and 

 in the mews. 



Even in the last few weeks of his life he had the greatest 

 success in the difficult sport of grouse hawking, killing, although 

 in failing health, ninety-six grouse between August 12 and 

 September 6 with four hawks only. He lies buried at Berrie- 

 dale. 



