Country House Society

by Pamela Horn

  We would have about seven or eight guns, friends of my father, who were usually extremely good shots. Each gun had to have a loader and usually brought his own. Shoots were always mid-week, on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday … The estate staff were beating … There would be forty or fifty of them going through the woods with the keeper in command … We had five keepers, and they all had boys to help with the shoot. We used to rear a tremendous lot of pheasants. All the eggs were collected up by the keepers and extra eggs bought, so that the pheasant blood was changed. Then thousands of broody hens were collected and put out in coops all around in the pheasants’ big field. They sat on the eggs until they hatched out, and ran in and out of the woods. A tremendous lot of vermin killing went on.62

  On the Flete estate the womenfolk did not join in the actual shoot, but that was not necessarily the case elsewhere. Although many older ‘guns’, including the king, disapproved of females shooting, during the 1920s increasing numbers began to do so, as photographs in The Bystander and The Tatler confirm. At Flete, however, the women

  usually spent the morning either going round the garden or going to look at a church. Then we used to join the men for a tremendous luncheon in one of the keeper’s houses, which was quite small … The food was brought down by the footmen and the butler … all the food was brought in hay boxes … by the garden horse. We drank cider and beer, and then there was cherry brandy afterwards. We all used to stay with them in the afternoon … When shooting was over, we came in and had the most delicious tea, with masses of Devonshire cream, honey, jam, scones and cakes. Everybody would relax and then go to dress for dinner.63

  The arrangements were still more lavish on the Duke of Westminster’s Eaton estate. Twenty gamekeepers were employed and they and their helpers reared about 20,000 pheasants each year. Norman Mursell, who became an underkeeper at Eaton in 1928 when he was fourteen, took part in his first shoots as the ‘lad carrying the cartridges for the Duke’s gun loader’. The beaters and keepers would meet outside the hall at dawn, with the keepers dressed in their elaborate livery. The senior ones wore

  a green velvet coat, green velvet waistcoat with brass buttons with the Grosvenor crest, and white breeches. They all wore the old hard bowler hat and the head keeper had that much gold braid round it you had a job to see the top of it. The junior ones just had one piece of braid round it. These hundred beaters, all employees of the estate … were on parade and wore white smocks and red bush hat, a leather belt around the hat and brown leather leggings.64

  The red hat was designed to warn the guns of their presence and thereby make it less likely they would be shot in error. At Eaton, unlike the policy on many estates, employees were not allowed to take tips from the guests who were shooting. Instead the duke usually sent a £5 note to them at Christmas in compensation. At shooting parties there, as elsewhere, a record was kept of the number of birds killed by each of the guns, and this would be circulated at the end of the day’s shooting.65

  Mursell also described the bitter hostility of the gamekeepers towards poachers, particularly those who took pheasants and thereby destroyed ‘our long hard labour for many months and we weren’t going to have that. But we were fortunate as we had twenty keepers and we used to have a rota so that there was somebody on duty every hour of the darkness.’ He claimed, too, that the security role performed by the gamekeepers was important for the general welfare of the estate because at least one of these men was always about and ‘had to be very, very observant,’ in order to carry out his normal duties.66

  However in January 1920, Country Life argued that poaching was not only increasing but that post-war poachers were ‘much more formidable’ to tackle than they had been ‘before doing a bit of soldiering’. They were prepared to ‘stand up to the gamekeeper or the keeper’s master, for the matter of that’. Three years later the journal reported a meeting of landowners and sportsmen in Anglesey, where poaching was rife, due partly to high local unemployment. The aim was to set up a Game Protection Society to check the depredations. As one of the speakers drily pointed out, the poachers never had any difficulty in disposing of their ill-gotten gains. He also claimed that Anglesey had ‘long been noted for the number and audacity of its poachers’.67

  With the break-up of many large estates and the heavy costs involved in running successful shoots, a number of owners leased or rented their shooting rights to syndicates of friends. It was a solution favoured by Country Life, which argued that it offered advantages to both landowners and farming tenants. ‘As regards the former, half a dozen people can afford to pay more rent and spend more money on upkeep and general care of the land than a single individual, while from the farmer’s point of view systematic shooting and destruction of vermin are boons … [A] shooting party who all pay for the privilege … want good sport and are willing to pay the price’.68 Smallholders and others living in the area might benefit, too, by being paid to act as beaters, or they might supply a horse and cart to carry the game, cartridges and the luncheon for the shooting party. Some might even be hired as loaders. But for a syndicate to work well it must have a competent organiser at its head who not only understood the concerns of local farmers but the financial aspects of the scheme. An efficient gamekeeper was also essential and if syndicate members hesitated to recruit a keeper because of the cost of his wages and other factors, Country Life warned a shoot would never be successful unless a skilled man was appointed to take charge and to devote himself full-time to its interests.

  Partridges and pheasants without a keeper are seldom more than a quarter of those which his efforts produce. The destruction of vermin, the distribution of eggs taken from nests in dangerous places, the prevention of trespass and the maintenance of cordial relations with the farmers and small cultivators, these items alone account for the increase.

  In Country Life’s opinion a good keeper was ‘first and last, the pivot of the whole scheme, the magician who, even if he cannot make partridges out of stones, certainly produces them where there were none before’.69 It was accepted that the large-scale shoots of the pre-war era were at an end. Part of the revulsion against the mass slaughter of game after 1918 arose not merely on grounds of cost and organisation but as a result of the human large-scale slaughter which had taken place in the First World War itself. In 1937, the Duke of Portland spoke for a number of other landowners when he admitted that he was ‘quite ashamed’ of the ‘enormous number of pheasants we sometimes killed’ on his Welbeck estate in the years before 1914.70

  That was not a view shared by King George V. He prided himself on his shooting prowess, and revelled in achieving large bags, both at Sandringham and elsewhere. Even in the 1920s around 20,000 head of game were being raised on the Sandringham estate and some of those who visited the estate regarded the king’s enthusiasm for killing as ‘anachronistic and unbalanced.’ Each year, according to the king’s biographer, 20,000 head of game were shot at Sandringham, and another 10,000 or so on leased estates. Most were reared pheasants, and there were those who criticised the head keeper, Mr Bland, for this mass killing of what were relatively tame birds. Bland served on the estate for over half a century and both visitors and courtiers commented on the ease with which the birds were shot. ‘One sees pheasants everywhere in the park and gardens,’ wrote a parson, ‘the place is literally crawling with them.’71

  When the king visited other estates he similarly expected to shoot large numbers of birds. At Elveden, the long-serving keeper, T. W. Turner, recalled that when the monarch paid his regular visits to the estate, ‘hand-reared birds would be placed on the beats where His Majesty would be asked to shoot’, and any shoots held prior to his arrival would not be permitted to encroach on the area required for the royal party. ‘This required the most careful planning. Once the royal shoot was over the whole territory could be freely shot over a second time.’72

  Unlike his brother, the Duke of York (later King George VI), the Prince of Wales was neither an enthusiastic no
r a very successful shot, and he felt this was a handicap for him in his relations with his father. As he ruefully told Mrs Dudley Ward, the king ‘was rather inclined to judge people by their powers of shooting, though of course that is silly!’73

  At Balmoral, too, sport dominated proceedings, not only in regard to the shooting of grouse after the Twelfth of August each year, but also in respect of deer stalking. That was a sport that was valued by Lord Willoughby de Broke as well as by the king. In 1924 the former noted that unlike foxhunting, it had not changed since the war. ‘The stalker has to go out on foot, find the deer with his glass, and stalk them by his knowledge of the ground and by his ability to take advantage of the wind, in exactly the same way as his ancestors stalked them on the same hills.’74 To achieve the best results the services of a skilled ghillie were essential, and Willoughby de Broke’s enthusiasm for the sport was shared by Country Life. In July 1926, it claimed it was

  one of the high arts of shooting, for it demands more than a mere capacity to hold a rifle straight and the physical endurance to climb the hills. Stalking at its best involves hillcraft and hunters’ craft, and the real hard work is repaid a thousand-fold by the sheer exhilaration of success. No other form of British sport gives the shooting man quite the same thrill as the long-drawn-out period of anticipation when working up to deer.75

  As for the king, when he shot the heaviest stag ever killed on the leased estate of Abergeldie, he could not resist writing to a friend to tell him of the achievement.76 Not all of the royal stalking parties were so successful, however. Helen Hardinge, whose husband Alec was one of George V’s secretaries, informed her mother on one occasion how the king, the Duke of York and her husband had all gone out for the day on a deer-drive: ‘That is what they got: 2 pigeons … 1 blackcock … 1 fox (Alec)!!! Rather good for a deer drive!’77

  George V’s pride in his prowess with a shotgun and a rifle also extended to the grouse moor. According to one young onlooker, who had been recruited as a beater, ‘every bird that fell to the King’s gun was dead in the air before it dropped … It was shooting as the ordinary first-class shot may dream of shooting.’78

  Although Queen Mary concealed the fact from her husband, shooting bored her. ‘It was so stiff,’ she remarked of one shooting party, ‘I would have turned cartwheels for sixpence.’79 She was interested in museums, art galleries and antique shops, and Balmoral offered scant opportunity for her to follow these pursuits.

  In September 1921 Queen Mary and her daughter, Princess Mary, escaped from Balmoral for a few days to stay with one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, Lady Airlie. When arrangements were being made for the visit, the ladies-in-waiting who were with the queen at Balmoral asked that everything should remain relatively informal, so that only ‘shooting everyday clothes’ would be worn, and the queen was anxious to visit antique shops. ‘Are there any old shops in Perth with the sort of little bibelots she likes picking up – little cheap things that might do for the doll’s house? Most people take her to the big shops where there is priceless furniture at prohibitive prices.’80

  The popularity of grouse shooting and deer stalking among the sporting fraternity was particularly important for many Scottish landowners, who relied upon the rental income they derived from letting or leasing their grouse moors and deer forests to outsiders, including American visitors. According to Patrick Balfour, Americans would pay up to £7,000 for three months’ shooting in Scotland, and one paid £35,000 for a five-year tenancy of a famous moor. The Cunard Line, to cater for its American clients, leased ‘many of the best moors and spent fortunes improving the lodges, installing electric light, building roads and tennis courts’. This all came to an end, however, following the stock market crash in the autumn of 1929. By 1932, declared Balfour, ‘gunmakers were facing bankruptcy and Highland lairds a reversion to the simplicity of their former mode of life’.81

  Although there were grouse moors in the north of England and in Wales, it was Highland Scotland that had the greatest appeal. The railway companies recognised this in the 1920s, when they made arrangements to transport the sportsmen and their gear – and servants – north of the border. In 1922, for example, the London & North Western Railway offered a new facility

  in connection with their renowned special sleeping-car service. Hitherto passengers for the Highlands leaving Euston at 7.30 p.m. have found that this departure time necessitated their taking an early evening meal in town. With a view to eliminating this disadvantage, the company have introduced a dining-car on this train.82

  Not to be outdone, the Great Northern Railway Company announced that trains on the east-coast route, from London to Scotland, would be ‘augmented as necessary to meet the expected heavy demand for accommodation. For those preferring to travel by daylight, luncheon-car expresses will leave King’s Cross at 9.50 a.m.’83 Nor did advertisers fail to point out the sturdy clothing needed to combat the Scottish climate. Shooting Times suggested thick boots with plenty of hobnails, a good tweed suit, flannel shirt and for headgear ‘nothing beats a soft felt hat. It turns rain and shades you from the sun’.

  Some sportsmen, like the Duke of Westminster, combined an interest in grouse shooting (the duke having acquired a grouse moor in Wales) with an enthusiasm for fishing. According to his third wife, he ‘was mad … about fishing. He had the best fishing in Scotland, on the River Laxford … A huge loch, Loch Stack, flowed into the river.’84 One of the duke’s mistresses during the 1920s, the famous Paris dress designer Coco Chanel, seems to have shared his enthusiasm. According to the Laxford records, between 1 and 4 October 1927 alone she caught eleven salmon, the heaviest of them weighing 24 lbs. Coco also shared some of the duke’s other sporting interests, joining him for cruises aboard his yacht, the Flying Cloud, and when staying at Eaton she not only hunted several days a week in the season, but accompanied him to race meetings. Their affair ended in 1929, after about five years, possibly because by then she was too old to bear him the son and heir he craved. She, for her part, had an important career and large income from her business as probably France’s most famous dress designer.85

  The duke, however, did not confine his interest in fishing to Scotland. He arranged many expeditions to Norway, visiting Bosskop in the Arctic Circle on a number of occasions.86

  Sport Overseas

  The Duke of Westminster’s fishing trips to Norway were just one sign of the growing internationalism of sport among the social elite during the 1920s. In some cases this merely extended activities available in Britain itself, such as tennis, golf, polo and sailing. But there were other, more exotic possibilities, too, such as big-game hunting in Africa and Asia, while winter sports in Switzerland and Austria appealed particularly to the younger and more energetic members of society. Even New Zealand advertised its sporting credentials, claiming to possess ‘the world’s Finest Stalking’ and to be ‘The Angler’s Eldorado’: ‘Rainbow Trout have been taken up to 24 lbs and brown trout up to 10 lbs or more, while fighting swordfish have been killed on rod and line up to 1,000 lbs and over 12 feet in length’.87

  The desire to resume travelling in Europe after the trauma of the First World War became quickly apparent, not merely among bereaved families making pilgrimages to the graves of their fallen menfolk, but with the fashion conscious going on shopping expeditions to Paris. Holidaymakers, too, increased in number, so that by 17 December 1919 The Tatler could report that for weeks past the ‘eastward exodus in search of sunshine has been in full swing – to the Riviera, Italy, Switzerland, and even further afield.’ Later, cruises to a variety of destinations were being advertised, while luxury yachts were once more at anchor in the harbour at Monte Carlo, loaded ‘with the most inveterate pleasure-seekers.’ By early January 1920, Evelyn of The Tatler reported that the Riviera was so popular that ‘I’m told you can’t get a sleeping berth on the trains down there for over a month.’88 Once they had reached their destination, holidaymakers could enjoy a variety of sports. Early in 1920, for example, C
annes boasted that it could offer tennis, golf, polo and even pigeon shooting, to say nothing of the opportunity to gamble at the various casinos along the coast, including in Monte Carlo itself. At Nice, sailing regattas were organised during the 1920s and race meetings held.

  To a lesser extent, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco shared in the new travel boom among socialites. Evelyn in The Tatler claimed that Algeria had become an alternative to the Riviera in the eyes of some, offering plenty of tennis and golf, as well as perfect weather. The country was, of course, still ruled by the French.89 The congenial climate here and in similar destinations offered the well-to-do the opportunity to escape the rigours of a British winter.

  The Duke of Westminster indulged his love of travel and of sport overseas not merely by his yachting, tennis and golfing expeditions in southern Europe and his fishing trips to Norway, but by hunting wild boar on his estate at Mimizan. This was situated in an isolated location between Bordeaux and Biarritz, and to establish the hunt he had imported a pack of Welsh hounds and some English horses. Lady Weymouth, who was one of his guests, remembered that the first time she and her husband stayed at Mimizan, there was not only the excitement of the chase but its danger. Some of the men carried revolvers so that they could shoot their quarry when it was cornered. A wild boar at bay was a fearsome creature, and shortly before the Weymouths’ arrival one of the huntsmen who had dismounted to despatch a trapped animal had had his thigh ripped open by the enraged beast.