Yorkshire Almanac 2025

Unedited excerpt

The excerpt in the book is shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

We were not debarred from seeing what we could of field sports at Cundale, and in the following letter to my sister is a singularly crude, not to say brutal, description of my first experience of coursing:

Cundale, 14th February 1863.
I wish you had been here yesterday to see a coursing match. It was such fun. The first two hares the first dog bit one of their legs in two; but falling over in a most insane manner (like Nettle over the cart rut) the second caught the hare.

But the best of all was a man whom we named Wildfire Sampson, he is rather insane at times. He rode about the field on a little pony as hard as he could, all the while shouting and yelling at anybody he came near; didn’t care for any person, if they didn’t choose to get out of the way he’d run over them; sometimes nearly tumbling off: always first down to the place where the hare was being killed. The common expression was “By Gor! here comes Sampson, let me be off!”

A great many hares got away. One ran so far that a dog who was chasing it lay down on the road and couldn’t go any further.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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• Blood sport (5) W/G ·
• Cundall, North Yorkshire (4) W/G ·
• Dog (12) W/G ·
• Field sports (4) W/G ·
• Greyhound (2) W/G ·
• Hare coursing (1) W/G ·
• Hare (5) W/G ·
• Horse (72) W/G ·

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Similar

28 February 1863: William Allison (11) goes mouse-hunting with a fellow-pupil at Cundall (Ripon)

12 August 1866: William Allison (15) goes grouse shooting for the first time, on Saltergate Moor (Pickering)

25 May 1728: King Jessop, the fighting rector of Treeton (Rotherham), is buried at Sheffield, and remembered for his punch and his parody

30 July 1820: Primitive Methodists try to disrupt the traditional Maudlin Fair football match between Hedon and Preston (Holderness)

12 May 1865: John Pick Allison, a Thirsk solicitor, writes to comfort his 14-year-old son William at Rugby School

23 February 1863: The Rev Samuel Gray of Cundall tries to make school interesting for a nervous William Allison (12)

10 March 1863: William Allison (11) rides two miles on a donkey from Cundall to Brafferton to help celebrate the marriage of the future Edward VII to Alexandra of Denmark

11 August 1875: The Whitby town crier’s unique act for the municipal dog show

30 May 1835: Alfred Austin, future poet laureate, “Banjo-Byron that twangs the strum-strum,” is born into rural splendour at Ashwood, 48 Headingley Lane, Leeds

23 December 1838: Showman Old Jemmy Wild’s body travels by caravan from Bradford to Huddersfield, followed by Billy the fortune-telling pony and Jerry the bloodhound

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Billy’s tricks included “pointing out the little boys who stole their mamma’s sugar, the men who were fonder of grog than of going to church on Sundays, and the young lady who was just about to be married,” as well as discovering “the biggest rogue of the company.” Here’s the editor:

This scene, which always created infinite amusement (and which was no doubt partially suggested by the story of Banks and his famous horse, “Marocco,” as narrated in Tarleton’s Jests), was, I am told on the authority of one who has repeatedly witnessed the performance, somewhat after this fashion: “Now, Billy,” the old man would say, “I want you to go round and pick me out the biggest rogue in the company.” Whereupon Billy would walk slowly round the ring – this was in the old amphitheatre times – and suddenly stop at his master, to the intense amusement of the audience. “You scoundrel! How dare you, sir?” Old Jemmy would ask. “I told you to go round and pick me out the biggest rogue in the company, didn’t I? Now go round again, sir.” To an admonitory crack of the whip, Billy would once more set forth on his work of detection, and, of course, again stop at his master. Increased laughter and applause. “Well ladies and gentlemen,” Jemmy would say, addressing the audience, “I do believe the pony thinks I am the biggest rogue in the company” – (roars of laughter) – “and, really, ladies and gentlemen, I believe you think so, too!”

James Burnley provides a good summary (Burnley 1885).

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