Gamekeeping: An Illustrated History by David S D Jones

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GAMEKEEPING An Illustrated History mm

DAVID S D JONES

Quiller

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Black and white photographs and other archive materials are the copyright/property of the David S D Jones Collection unless otherwise stated and credited.

Copyright Š 2014 David S D Jones First published in the UK in 2014

by Quiller, an imprint of Quiller Publishing Ltd British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 84689 189 2 The right of David S D Jones to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patent Act 1988 The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. All recommendations are made without any guarantee on the part of the Publisher, who also disclaims any liability incurred in connection with the use of this data or specific details.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Book and jacket design by Sharyn Troughton Printed in China

Quiller An imprint of Quiller Publishing Ltd

Wykey House, Wykey, Shrewsbury, SY4 1JA Tel: 01939 261616 Fax: 01939 261606 E-mail: info@quillerbooks.com Website: www.quillerpublishing.com

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CONTENTS mm Foreword by Charles Nodder 7

Acknowledgements 9

INTRODUCTION: THE GAMEKEEPER 11

THE GAMEKEEPING HIERARCHY 19

GAMEKEEPERS’ PAY AND PERKS 34

GAMEKEEPER TRAINING 53

THE GAMEKEEPER AND HIS CASTE 58

GAME PRESERVATION 76

POACHING 103

PEST CONTROL 113

GAME SHOOTING 122

GAMEKEEPERS’ COTTAGES 132

THE GAMEKEEPER ABROAD 138

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GAMEKEEPING IN SCOTLAND 144

GAMEKEEPING IN IRELAND 152

A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COUNTRY GENTLEMAN 159

GAMEKEEPING PROFESSIONAL BODIES 168

THE MOORLAND GAMEKEEPER: Memories of George Grass of Ramsgill 177

THE PARK KEEPER 187

THE LADY GAMEKEEPER A Rare Bird 195

GAMEKEEPERS IN WARTIME 202

LOADERS AND LOADING 213

BEATERS PAST AND PRESENT 219

GAME RECORDS 227

Bibliography, Further Reading, References and Sources 234

Index 236

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Foreword by Charles Nodder mm

M

OST BRITISH HISTORY has been analysed to death by multiple academics, each with their own interpretation of events.

Gamekeeping is different. Its past has been largely unstudied and there has been no comprehensive record—until now.

Inspired by the life stories of his own gamekeeping ancestors, the ubiquitous Grass family, David Jones has devoted himself to gathering documents, studying archives, interviewing the elderly and, most importantly, writing everything down to produce this definitive history of the profession.

The story of gamekeeping in Britain is fascinating in its own right, but its richness is enhanced by the light it sheds on the history of rural society, from the wealthiest landowners to the poorest poachers. It is a tale that follows changing landscapes, the development of shooting sports and evolving attitudes to wildlife. It is affected by technological change, the emancipation of workers, the history of transport, by wars and by fashions.

All these strands are carefully woven in this intriguing yet accessible volume.

We learn about the keeper’s work, his home life, his character and his companions.We enjoy a ‘rare definitive sighting’ of lady gamekeeper Black-eyed Polly. We hear about men who took their keepering skills across the globe and we meet the keepers who stood guard over the body of King George VI. Modern gamekeepers not only share with their forebears a deep understanding of the countryside, they can also exude an equally historic pride and independence, sometimes hard for today’s largely urban population to understand. This is regrettable, because the gamekeepers’ specialist knowledge and important work now provide an essential lifeline for Britain’s struggling wildlife.

David’s pioneering book has already saved much for posterity, but if it also furthers public understanding of today’s gamekeepers, it will contribute to the future wellbeing of the British countryside itself. There could be no greater tribute to the gamekeepers who have gone before.

This is an important book and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.

Charles Nodder Political Adviser to The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation

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INTRODUCTION THE GAMEKEEPER mm

The gamekeeper: seen by many urban dwellers simply as a man with a gun who strolls around the countryside accompanied by a faithful dog.

Etching from Daniel’s Rural Sports 1801

G

AMEKEEPERS were employed in the royal hunting forests to protect deer and wild boar from the predations of poachers as far back as the late Saxon period. They continued to act primarily as deer foresters or wardens for the reigning monarch and his senior noblemen until the late seventeenth century, when King Charles II passed an Act of Parliament in 1671 allowing any gentleman above the rank of esquire, who was legally qualified to kill game, to appoint a gamekeeper to preserve game on his property. A further Act in 1683 gave gamekeepers legal powers to confiscate guns, nets and ‘engines of destruction’ from poachers, and to obtain a warrant from a magistrate allowing them to search the home of anyone suspected of poaching during daylight hours.

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These Acts were passed at a time when wealthy sportsmen were beginning to take an interest in shooting at flying game birds, rather than shooting them on the ground or hawking them.They now needed gamekeepers who not only chased poachers by fair means or foul, but who could attend to them on the shooting field and help to maintain stocks of wild partridges and other quarry birds by trapping or snaring predators.

SKILLED MEN Sportsmen began to recruit skilled men as their gamekeepers, rather than local ‘heavies’, often combining the job with that of deer park keeper, falconer or huntsman of a small pack of hounds. Men were selected from a variety of backgrounds ranging from yeoman farmers and farm labourers to warreners and ex-soldiers.

In order to attract the right men into the profession, sportsmen offered gamekeepers better terms and conditions of employment than farm labourers, who were then very much ‘casuals’. They paid them an annual salary, provided them with a free cottage usually with a smallholding attached, wood for firing, and a uniform consisting of a top hat, a green velveteen frock coat, leather breeches, leggings and boots.

William Mansell, gamekeeper to the 2nd Duke of Newcastle at Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire c.1788. Mansell is credited with the development and improvement of the Clumber spaniel in Great Britain for shooting purposes

A SPECIALIST PROFESSION By the late eighteenth century, gamekeeping had started to become a specialist profession particularly on large estates in the south of England and East Anglia.

Sportsmen had begun to preserve pheasants through nest management and to import partridge eggs from France, then incubating the eggs using broody hens.

Many gamekeeping appointments at this time were made by word of mouth or by correspondence between sportsmen and their friends or relatives. Sons

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Introduction: The Gamekeeper

were starting to follow their fathers as gamekeepers, with some families remaining on the estate for several generations. Occasionally, a gamekeeper would be given as a ‘dowry’ by a landowner to a new son-in-law, usually with a brief to ‘spy’ on how his daughter was being treated in her new home.

MIGRATION During the early years of the nineteenth century, gamekeepers started to migrate around the country. Some left their own district to gain experience or promotion on a larger estate. Others moved away because of threats from poachers. Often, a landowner with several properties would transfer his keepers from one estate to another. Many employers appreciated a man from ‘away’ as he was unlikely to be related to local labourers, farmers or poachers, all of whom could put him in a compromising position. A ‘foreigner’ was both feared and respected in a country village.

Gamekeepers were prepared to travel great distances in search of a new job.

James Grass left his native village in Suffolk in the early 1820s and walked to Longleat in Wiltshire, where he became an under-keeper. He subsequently worked his way north via Beaudesert Park in Staffordshire and Redgorton in Perthshire to Carnbee in Fife, where he served as head keeper to the Anstruther family for over forty years.Another intrepid traveller was William Coleman from Vernham Dean in Hampshire, who moved to Tilgate in West Sussex in 1820, then made the long journey to Trewarthenick in Cornwall in 1828, remaining there as a gamekeeper for the rest of his life. All of these epic journeys were made in a pre-railway age.

By the 1820s, sportsmen and landowners were starting to advertise in provincial newspapers for gamekeepers. The following advertisement, which appeared in a Norfolk newspaper in 1824, summarises quite well the duties and qualities required of a keeper during this period: ‘WANTED—A good gamekeeper over a large manor, unmarried or married with no children; he must understand the whole of his business, be a complete master of the art of rearing and preserving game, and also of killing vermin. He must be strong, active, hardy, sober and honest, and have an undeniable character from his last place.’

Sportsmen at this time often went out either alone or in small groups walkingup and shooting partridges, pheasants and other birds, accompanied by a gamekeeper and a couple of pointers and setters and were content with a bag of

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perhaps ten or fifteen head of game in a day. Few estates employed more than one or two gamekeepers. Indeed, as late as 1837, when shooting was really starting to become popular throughout the country, official statistics issued by the Government estimate that the nation’s gamekeeping force consisted only of around 8,000 men.

However, from the 1840s onwards, the continental practice of battue, or driven shooting, gradually began to replace walked-up shooting on many country estates, enabling bigger bags of pheasants and partridges to be taken on a shoot day. This was followed by the introduction of the breech-loading shotgun in the 1850s, which allowed sportsmen to kill a large number of game birds within a short space of time. Both of these innovations led to a demand for increased stocks of game.

Landowners began to recruit large teams of gamekeepers to rear pheasants artificially using broody hens, to preserve partridges through nest management and to bolster hare stocks by putting down imported live hares, in order that big bags of game could be shot on their property.

Head gamekeepers were appointed to take charge of game preservation on sporting estates, to allocate work to beat keepers who looked after a ‘beat’ or section of an estate, to train young men as additional keepers, and to liaise with other estate staff. Unlike other outdoor servants, who dealt with their master via a land agent, the head keeper usually had direct access to him.

A typical mid-nineteenth century gamekeeper in traditional dress c.1855

‘The English Gamekeeper’ by Richard Ansdell RA c.1855—a somewhat romanticised portrait of a midnineteenth century gamekeeper

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GAMEKEEPER TRAINING mm

‘On the job’ training at Whitfield, Herefordshire c.1900. The two trainee gamekeepers are on their knees preparing home-made pheasant food

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AMEKEEPING, like many other rural occupations, has traditionally been carried out on a ‘father to son’ basis, often over four or five generations. In times past, if a gamekeeper did not come from a keepering family, he was usually the son of a tenant farmer, a farm worker, a woodman or a warrener, and would have acquired a good knowledge of the countryside during his childhood. Poachers were also recruited into the profession, both for their fieldcraft skills and to stop them carrying out further offences.

‘ON THE JOB’ TRAINING Historically, gamekeepers were trained ‘on the job’, with boys as young as ten being engaged by landowners prior to the introduction of compulsory education in England in 1870. Many boys began their keepering career working in the estate kennels, feeding and exercising gun dogs and cleaning out dirty bedding. Others started as vermin killers, trapping rabbits, moles and other predators on an estate, or as ‘odd job’ boys, driving the head keeper around in his pony and trap, digging his garden and cleaning his boots and shoes.

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After spending around a year working in the kennels or carrying out other menial duties, a boy would be allocated to a beat keeper to learn his trade, occasionally entering into an indentured apprenticeship with a landowner. He would then work a sixteen hour day, seven days a week, with a break on Sunday to attend church or chapel. He would either lodge with the beat keeper and his family or be provided with accommodation in the unmarried keepers’ bothy, where he would be looked after by the housekeeper.

Having successfully completed his training period, usually after four or five years, a young gamekeeper would be promoted to under-keeper or beat keeper and would be given a section of an estate to look after. The more progressive landowners, such as the 2nd Duke of Westminster (who owned the Eaton estate in Cheshire and several sporting properties in Scotland and Wales), encouraged their newly qualified trainees to move to another part of the country for several years to gain additional experience on a partridge manor or a grouse moor, guaranteeing them a job and a house upon their return.

In days gone by, many gamekeepers were content to remain on an estate for life, managing the same section or ‘beat’ for fifty years or more. The more ambitious men moved around every four or five years, eventually progressing to foreman or second keeper and, ultimately, to head gamekeeper. The only qualification required for these more senior positions was experience, preferably gained on sporting properties in a variety of different locations, often as far apart as Cornwall and Caithness.

TRAINING EX-SERVICEMEN AS GAMEKEEPERS In addition to training injured ex-servicemen, who

student, Sergeant Ernest Albert Egerton VC, who

had served in World War One, in a variety of

won the Victoria Cross for his bravery in Belgium

agricultural occupations on the Preston Hall

in 1917, was unable to secure a situation as a

Colony estate in Kent, Industrial Settlements

gamekeeper. Indeed it is unclear whether or not

Incorporated, a rehabilitation organisation formed

any of the students actually found employment in

in 1919, also operated a twelve month ‘crash

gamekeeping.

course’ in gamekeeping. Sadly, the most famous

RESIDENTIAL GAMEKEEPING COURSES Gamekeepers continued to be trained ‘on the job’ in the traditional manner right up until the 1950s when the ICI Game Research Station at Fordingbridge in Hampshire, the forerunner of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, began to

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A group of Game Conservancy students on a training day on the Broadlands estate in Hampshire c.1965

introduce in-service training days on estates to familiarise gamekeepers with modern game preservation practices, including new pheasant and partridge rearing methods, the use of drugs for controlling diseases in birds and updated wildlife protection legislation.The Game Research Station later set up residential courses lasting either for a week or a fortnight for the same reason, both for experienced keepers and for young men who had just entered the profession.

In 1972, the Hampshire College of Agriculture at Sparsholt (now known as Sparsholt College), near Winchester, broke new ground in gamekeeper training, establishing the first year long residential course for keepers in Great Britain.

This was initially limited to twelve students, all of whom were given day release once a week to work alongside experienced gamekeepers on local estates. The course proved to be an instant success and is still run today, at the present time offering both BTEC Diplomas and City & Guilds qualifications.

Other colleges in various parts of the British Isles have since followed Sparsholt’s example in providing full-time gamekeeper training to both school leavers and adults, including Newton Rigg in Cumbria, The Wiltshire College at Lackham, The Duchy Gamekeeping students at Sparsholt College learning how to dress a College at Stoke Climsland in Cornwall and the deer carcase in a hygienic UHI North Highland College at Thurso, to name environment: courtesy of but a few.

Sparsholt College

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GAMEKEEPING QUALIFICATIONS Today, there are a number of gamekeeping qualifications at various skill levels on offer from different colleges, some of which also equip students to work in related occupations such as countryside and wildlife management, forestry or farming. These range from basic qualifications such as City & Guilds and NVQ or National Certificates to BTEC Diplomas, HNC, HND and Foundation Degrees.

In addition to full-time college courses, gamekeeping can be studied either on a part-time or a day release basis, or by working alongside an experienced keeper. As early as 1978, the Labour Government of the day (who were more supportive of fieldsports than ‘New Labour’) encouraged the Manpower Services Commission to place suitable unemployed young men on sporting estates to learn the trade of keepering under the auspices of the Work Experience Scheme. In recent years, the introduction of the Modern Apprenticeship Scheme has enabled students who are not interested in full-time training to enter gamekeeping via a different route, combining practical gamekeeping work with the opportunity to gain a valid qualification.

There are still many gamekeepers working in the British countryside who learnt their trade in the time honoured manner, some of whom are openly hostile to academic training. In fact, some new entrants to the gamekeeping profession, particularly mature men, continue to be trained ‘on the job’ rather than at college, presumably for financial reasons.

Gamekeepers and stalkers on a National Gamekeepers’ Organisation deer management training course: courtesy of Steve Rex

ESSENTIAL TRAINING However, like it or not, in today’s politically correct climate, it is vital that every gamekeeper receives a certain amount of training in areas such as game meat hygiene, firearms regulations, wildlife and countryside management, and public

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GAMEKEEPING PROFESSIONAL BODIES mm

Keepers’ Benefit Society membership certificate 1895

T

HE PROFESSION OF GAMEKEEPING has always attracted loyal, hardworking men who, almost without exception, have gone far beyond the call of duty when carrying out the multifarious range of tasks allotted to them. These qualities have long been recognised and rewarded by the great majority of employers. However, back in the Victorian period, in prewelfare state days, the odd, unscrupulous landowner thought nothing of sacking a gamekeeper who had become incapacitated as the result of a poaching affray, or evicting the widow and family of a man who had been murdered by poachers.

THE KEEPERS’ BENEFIT SOCIETY In order to protect gamekeepers against this rogue element in the landowning fraternity, a group of influential gentlemen, headed by Viscount Stormont and

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Lord Westbury, met at Limmer’s Hotel in London on 31st May 1886 and founded an organisation known as the Keepers’ Benefit Society. Membership was divided into two categories: the benefit or gamekeeper member, who paid an annual subscription ranging from 12/- (60p) for a man under thirty to £2-14/- (£2.70) for a fifty year old, and the honorary or gentleman member who could either become a life member for £26-5/- (£26.25) or make an annual donation of £2-2/- (£2.10).

RULES OF THE KEEPERS’ BENEFIT SOCIETY: ‘The object of the Society is to provide

totally incapacitated from work on

for the widows and families of keepers

account of old age or accident. Such

who lose their lives in the protection of

certificates must be renewed every six

game, deer or fish, also to provide with

months. The word “keeper” shall mean

a yearly income those keepers who can

any person who is wholly employed in

produce a certificate from their present

the protection of game, deer, or fish for

or late master, countersigned by a

sporting purposes.’

Justice of the Peace, that they are

Benefits available to members of the Keepers’ Benefit Society or their dependants included a £75 lump sum payable to the widow or family of a gamekeeper who had died as a result of injuries sustained from an attack by poachers or a shotgun accident and a small pension which could be claimed by aged or incapacitated men who were not in receipt of any other form of income.

By 1890, the Keepers’ Benefit Society had 786 gamekeeper members and 244 honorary subscribers and boasted assets of over £4,000. In addition to providing financial assistance to gamekeepers, the organisation had opened a ‘Register Department’ to enable gamekeeper members to obtain new situations.

The Society ‘Benefactions List’ was headed by Queen Victoria, who generously made a donation of £140. Regular annual subscribers included gun makers such as Holland & Holland, Purdey, and Boss & Co., various cartridge and powder manufacturers, The Field newspaper and Spratt’s Dog Biscuit Co. Sadly, the relatively high annual fees demanded by the Keepers’ Benefit Society from gamekeeper members, often the equivalent of two or more weeks’ wages, limited the membership to single gamekeepers, gamekeepers with no families, head gamekeepers and those who had their fees paid by a generous employer. As a result, the Society did not expand in size as expected by the founding fathers of the organisation.

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Keepers’ Benefit Society annual rule book and list of honorary subscribers 1903

The Keepers’ Benefit Society was at its strongest during the Edwardian period when the sport of shooting was at its peak. A total of fifty three retired gamekeepers were receiving annual pensions from the Society at this time, including eleven living in Scotland.The treasurer was making regular payments to men injured in poaching affrays too, and had sufficient funds to provide pensions for gamekeepers’ widows and families.

However, when the Liberal Government introduced the state pension in 1909, many keeper members resigned from the Keepers’ Benefit Society, especially those on low wages who struggled to find money to pay their annual subscription.The Society lost more members during the Great War and suffered from a continuous decline in membership throughout the 1930s and ’40s.

Interestingly in 1949, commenting on the healthy state of Society funds, the secretary observed that ‘according to the insurance tables on expectation of life, the average gamekeeper’s expectation of life may be taken as at least eight years in excess of the ordinary person, due no doubt to his outdoor life and mode of living.’

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