Falconry - Celebrated Falconers, Scotch, Dutch and English Clubs, the Falconers Club, Colonel Thornton, the Loo Club, the Old Hawking Club, Amateur Fa

By Gerald William Lascelles

This antiquarian book constitutes one volume of a detailed and useful guide to falconry, and includes information on celebrated falconers and falconers' clubs. This fascinating and extensively illustrated text will be of considerable utility to modern hawking enthusiasts, and would make for a wonderful addition to collections of related literature. The chapters of this book include: 'Celebrated Falconers'; 'Scotch, Dutch and English Clubs'; 'The Falconer's Club'; 'Colonel Thornton'; 'The Old Hawking Club', etcetera. Many antiquarian books such as this are becoming increasingly hard to come by and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this book. It now comes as an affordable, modern edition - complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on falconry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Mar 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781446548752

Book preview

CELEBRATED FALCONERS—SCOTCH, DUTCH, AND ENGLISH CLUBS—THE FALCONERS’ CLUB—COLONEL THORNTON— THE LOO CLUB—THE OLD HAWKING CLUB—AMATEUR FALCONERS—FAMOUS HAWKS—RECORDS OF SPORT.

The histories of those individuals by whose skill and knowledge any sport, science, or art has been maintained will always be interesting to those who at a distance of time may follow in their footsteps. A few pages describing the men who in recent times have kept the art of Falconry not only alive, but have now and again fanned its glowing embers into a blaze, will no doubt prove of interest to the student of the sport.

For a history of the falconers of the last century we would refer our readers to the introduction to ‘Falconry in the British Isles.’ We will ‘take up the running’ from the point where that work has abandoned the task. Among the chief friends of John Anderson the great Scotch falconer, who was born in 1745 and died in 1833, was one Ballantyne, who was the steward at Lord Bute’s residence, Dumfries House, in Ayrshire, and who had at one time acted as falconer to the Earl of Eglinton. Ballantyne, like his friend, loved a hawk, and his boy Peter was trained to carry one as soon as he could stand erect. Peter Ballantyne was born in 1798, and at the age of twenty was apprenticed to his father’s old friend, John Anderson, who was at that time falconer to the Renfrewshire Subscription Hawks. Mr. Fleming was the manager of this club till his death, and the head-quarters of the hawks was at his seat, Barochan Castle. For some years after Mr. Fleming’s death, Anderson and the hawks, with Ballantyne to assist him, continued at Barochan ; but for the last two years of his professional life he was in the service of the Earl of Morton at Dalmahoy. It was during the time of Peter Ballantyne’s apprenticeship to him that he visited London in a fancy dress of the period of James I., on the occasion of the coronation of George IV., in order to present to the king a cast of falcons on behalf of the Duke of Athol, who held the Isle of Man on that ancient feudal tenure. Very quaint indeed was Ballantyne’s description of his master’s appearance in this ‘get up,’ and the old picture at Barochan, which has been engraved (though impressions are scarce), fully justifies the language applied to it by Anderson himself.

After Anderson’s retirement in 1832, Ballantyne entered the service