Lord William Beresford, V.C., Some Memories of a Famous Sportsman, Soldier and WitMenzies, Stuart, Mrs.
History
Lord William Beresford, V.C., Some Memories of a Famous Sportsman, Soldier and Wit
Menzies, Stuart, Mrs.
Beresford, William Leslie de la Poer, Lord, 1847-1900
The three brothers were very happy working together over this
election, the affection they had felt for one another in youth had
not been estranged, they were still devoted to one another, it was
always charming to hear them speak of their relatives. What does this
family affection spring from I wonder? It is not often met with; take
two well-known families the Scotch Gordons and the Irish Waterfords.
The Gordons according to their own account could as brothers never
agree, if one told a story of what he had done at cricket, racing,
or some such thing, and one of his brothers happened to be present
he would flatly contradict him, telling him he did not believe it,
and he was telling tarra-diddles; followed of course by a free fight,
very often even when staying in friends’ houses. Once speaking of
their quarrelsomeness Lord Granville Gordon, commonly called Granny,
said, “You know our family is not like the Beresfords one bit, they
are always full of praise of one another and inseparable. If you were
to say to Lord Marcus or Markey as we call him, ‘That was a great
thing you brought off the other day,’ the reply would certainly be
something of this sort, ‘Oh yes, but you should see my brother Bill,
he can do ten times better,’ or ‘You should see Charlie, no one can
touch him’; the same with Lord Charles, it is always how much better
his brothers could do things than himself.”
An uncle of mine, the Rev. Francis Gooch, used to fish at Ford Abbey
in Northumberland by the kind permission of Lady Waterford. One day
when Lord Charles was up there and he was speaking to my uncle he
said, “Do you know my brother Bill?” The reply being in the negative
Lord Charles said, “Then bedad you don’t know the finest man in the
world.” It is really a beautiful and uncommon thing to have lived
through the great part of their allotted years, knowing each other
intimately, loving each other tenderly, without one spark of jealous
fault-finding, superiority, or littleness. The pity there are not
more families equally attached, they do not know what they miss;
looking back through the sketch book of their lives, that family
affection has added warmth and beautiful colouring to many of its
pictures, to be recalled and lived through again when the day is far
spent and night is near.
In 1898 Lord William owned many winners entered in the name of one
or other of the two partners. Caiman as a two year old won the
Middle Park Plate, value £2775, Sloan riding; beating the Duke of
Westminster’s Flying Fox ridden by Mornington Cannon. I am able to
give a beautiful photograph of Caiman at the starting-post the day he
won this race. It will be noticed Sloan did not ride very short, as I
have already pointed out. It will also be noticed his hand is up to
his mouth, this was a habit or trick of his, he always put his hand
to his mouth when a horse was walking or in a very slow pace. Whether
he had any theories about it or not I do not know.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account