58 The Life of Fred Archer 
most of them in full bloom, quite three feet high. The average 
home-rule Scotsman, who cannot stand the word England being 
applied to his country, would have gone mad at the sight. 
We could not help, however, under the circumstances, thinking 
them emblematic of the Dawson family, sturdy there against 
all encroachments and still rigid against the fierce blasts which 
blew in from the North Sea." 
Not long before his own death, Mr. John Peart, private 
secretary and book-keeper to John Scott of Whitewall House, 
Malton, wrote a memoir of the Dawson family. In it he 
describes George Dawson as a most upright, skilful and in- 
dustrious trainer, and also a rigid disciplinarian in the education 
of his many sons and daughters, whom he did not forget to 
make acquainted with that Scottish instrument of torture, the 
tawse. George Dawson certainly spoiled no son or stable-lad 
of his by flying in the face of Solomon's axiom. More than 
once in later days Mathew Dawson was heard to declare that 
he wished his father had had to govern his stable for a short 
time. George Dawson was most particular that his sons should 
write well, and it is said that once a friend showed the late 
Lord Granville four letters, one written by each of the four 
trainer brethren. Lord Granville gazed long and earnestly 
at the beautiful specimens of penmanship, and said : ' ' Would 
that my father had had me taught to write like that." 
Among George Dawson's patrons at Gullane were the 
eccentric Earl of Glasgow, then known as Lord Kelburne, 
Lord Montgomerie, until his death. Sir David Baird, Mr. 
Ramsay of Barnton, Sir James Boswell, Mr. Bell, and others. 
Thomas Dawson was the eldest of George Dawson's children 
and was carefully brought up to his father's profession. As 
soon as he reached man's estate, he left home with his little 
brother John, and established himself first at BeUeisle and 
afterwards at Brecongill, Middleham, Yorkshire. The fear- 
some-looking Highlander in Mr. John Dawson's garden at 
Newmarket once struck awe into the hearts of all beholders 
