26 The Life of Fred Archer 
two vicars, whom he served as vicar's warden. Mr. Edwards 
took a great interest in George Stevens, and is said to have given 
a picture of him to the landlord of the King's Arms after one 
of Stevens's fine Grand National victories, though after mature 
deliberation it was decided that the church bells should not 
be rung to celebrate the event. 
His son, Mr. De la Bere, was very fond of Fred Archer, both 
for his own sake and because of his mother and grandfather. 
When Mr. Hayward's daughters were httle girls, some Miss 
Hugheses came and set up a school in the village. Mr. Hayward 
was a great man in Prestbury, and he helped the sisters, who 
got together quite a flourishing little school. As a rule they 
only took the daughters of professional men and some of the 
better class tradesmen, but they took also the children of the 
landlord of the King's Arms, who had been so kind to them, 
and they gave the Hayward girls a very good education, 
Mrs. William Archer used in after years to tell her children 
stories of her schooldays and of Prestbury in the days of her 
youth. She wels fond of telling them of a wonderful old house 
called Broxteth House, which exists in Prestbury under 
another name. It was a very, very old-fashioned, rambling place, 
and when Emma Hayward used to go there an artist was 
decorating the dining-room. On every one of the panels round 
the room he was painting scenes in " The History of the Race- 
horse." With this animal Emma Hayward had in those days 
little acquaintance, though she was in after years to be so much 
mixed up with its destinies. 
" The pictures may be there now, for all I know," said 
Archer's sister (in about 1914), "but you see it's a long 
time ago. Mother has been dead five years, and she was 
nearly eighty-six when she died.* It's a pity she didn't 
write down her reminiscences ; she could have told you 
about everything. She was a fine-looking girl, with very good 
• Note by Sir Willoughby Maycock : " Fred Archer's mother died 
at Withington, near Cheltenham, in September, 1908." 
