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The Gamekeeper and English Rural Society, 1660-1830

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

P.B. Munsche
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Extract

Among the individuals who populated rural England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, few were more unloved than the gamekeeper. That he was regularly damned at the village alehouse is not, perhaps, all that surprising. The gamekeeper was, after all, responsible for enforcing the highly unpopular laws “for the preservation of the game.” It was he who searched laborers' cottages for snares, nets and illicit game; it was he too who hauled poachers before the local justice of the peace for summary trial and punishment. But if the gamekeeper was hated by the poor, his standing in other quarters was not notably higher. Stewards questioned his honesty, foxhunters denounced him as a vulpicide, and the press was always eager to brand him as a rank hypocrite. Defenders were rare and cautious. Even Richard Jefferies, author of a very sympathetic portrait of a keeper he had known in his youth, nevertheless felt compelled to acknowledge “the abuse lavished upon [gamekeepers] as a class—often, it is to be feared, too well deserved.” Historians, for their part, have made little effort to discover whether that abuse was in fact deserved. Those who have not ignored the question altogether have usually been content to repeat the charges hurled at gamekeepers by their contemporaries. In the view of one of the more recent historians of the game laws, for example, the gamekeeper “was usually some bold pugnacious labourer, often a former poacher chosen on the maxim ‘set a thief to catch a thief.’… He could not often resist the constant temptation to sell game on the sly ….And the combination of igonorance and authority all too often made him into a brutal and arrogant man.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , Spring 1981 , pp. 82 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1981

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References

I wish to thank John Beattie and Robert Malcolmson for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.

1 Jefferies, Richard, The Gamekeeper at Home: Sketches of Natural History and Rural Life (London, 1880), p. 13Google Scholar.

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3 22 & 23 Chas. II, c. 25. Those with franchises of park, chase or free warren were also qualified to hunt game. In the following pages, “hunt” and “sport” will be used interchangeably to denote coursing, netting, hawking and shooting, as well as hunting in the strict sense of the word.

4 4 & 5 Wm. & Mary, c. 23; 5 Anne, c. 14; 9 Anne, c. 25.

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11 7 Jas. I, c. 11. Cf. previous qualification acts: 13 Ric. II, st. 1, c. 13; 1 Jas. I, c. 27; 3 Jas. I, c. 13.

12 In the following pages, the term “game” will be used to refer only to these animals. Badgers, otters and foxes, though pursued for sport, were classified as vermin, not game. Deer and rabbits, while also the prey of sportsmen, were by the late seventeenth century enclosed in most parts of the country in parks and warrens, where they were raised as much for meat and skins as for sport. There was no property qualification for hunting any of these animals during our period. Those who unlawfully took deer or rabbits were prosecuted under a separate code of laws.

13 At the time the Game Act was passed, plaintiffs in trespass cases could not be awarded full costs unless the jury found damages exceeeding forty shillings (22 & 23 Chas. II, c. 9, s. 136). This was unlikely to happen in cases of simple trespass by sportsmen. The restriction was dropped in 1696 (8 & 9 Win. III, c. 11, s. 4), but it was still necessary to prove that prior notice not to trespass had been given to the defendant. This, and the cost of legal proceedings, still inhibited the prosecution of sportsmen.

14 22 & 23 Chas. II, c. 25, s. 2. The wording of the act implied that a gamekeeper did not need a J.P.'s warrant to search a house, but in practice one was usually obtained.

15 4 & 5 Wm. & Mary, c. 23, s. 4; 5 Anne, c. 14, s. 4.

16 The last recorded appointment of a royal gamekeeper was in 1703: see Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1703-4, pp. 454-5. A vestige of the old royal gamekeeperships remained, however, in the area around Newmarket, for which a keeper of “His Majesty's game” was appointed, somewhat fitfully, throughout the eighteenth century: see Morehead, O.F., “H.M. Gamekeeper,” Notes & Queries, CLXIV (1933), 373Google Scholar.

17 3 Geo. I, c. 11 The act was repealed in 1808 (48 Geo. III, c. 93), but had been nullified by the courts fifty years earlier: see Chitty, Josepy, A Treatise on the Game Laws and on Fisheries (London, 1812), II, 1148–53Google Scholar.

18 Beds. R.O., HW 76. For some examples, see Kent A.O., U270 C1: 29 Aug. 1719; Berks. R.O., D/EBy C3: 23 Aug. 1781; Sidney, Lord Herbert, ed., Pembroke Papers, 1780-94 (London, 1950), p. 328Google Scholar.

19 Wilts. R.O., Roll of Gamekeepers Deputations, 1761-70. See also, Salzman, L.F., ed., Record of Deputations of Gamekeepers (Sussex Record Society, LI [1950])Google Scholar.

20 9 Anne, c. 25, s. 1.

21 See Munsche, P.B., “The Game Laws in Wiltshire, 1750-1800,” in Cockburn, J.S., ed., Crime in England, 1550-1800 (London, 1977), n. 31Google Scholar.

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29 Ibid., p. 223; Holkham Hall (Norfolk) MSS, Country Accounts, 1724-31. I am grateful to the Earl of Leicester for permitting me to examine and quote from these accounts.

30 Kent A.O., U269 E29; E. Sussex R.O., Glynde MS 868: memorandum by William Wodgson, ca. 1760. See also Gentleman's Magazine, XIX (1749), 252Google Scholar. References to this practic can be found as late as 1800, but by then it seems to have become unusual: e.g., Daniel, William B., Rural Sports (London, 1801–1902), II, 428Google Scholar.

31 Salisbury Journal, 19 Sept. 1763, 9 Aug. 1784.

32 Ibid., 30 Jan. 1775, 9 Aug. 1779.

33 Mordant, John, The Complete Steward (London, 1761), I, 351–2Google Scholar. On the market in game eggs, see Part. Papers. 1828, VIII, Report on the Game Laws, 18, 48-9.

34 Beds. R.O., W1/6149. I have modernized the spelling and the punctuation.

35 Mayer, John, The Sportsman's Directory: or Park and Gamekeeper's Companion (Colchester, 1815), p. 122Google Scholar.

36 Ibid., pp. 88-9.

37 Beds. R.O., W1/6157.

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39 Wilts. R.O., Longleat MSS, Account Books, 1787-8; Staffs. R.O., D590/620: 24 Dec. 1787, D593/L/6/2/2: 1818-1826. On his Shropshire estate, Lord Stafford provided his men with gin: see Staffs. R.O., D593/L/4/10.

40 28 Geo. II, c. 12. The purchase of game, however, was not outlawed until 1818 (58 Geo. III, c. 75).

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51 W. Sussex R.O., Mitford Archives, MS 884.

52 Wilts. R.O., Savernake MSS, Charles Bill to Lord Ailesbury, 31 Oct. 1779. See also ibid., Bill to Lord Bruce, 16 Nov. 1765, and Taplin, Observations, p. 28.

53 Wilts. R.O., Savernake MSS, Bill to Ailesbury, 30 Nov. 1777.

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66 Sheffield Central Library, Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments, Stw. 6 (i): ? to Benjamin Hall, 13 Jan. 1773.1 wish to express my appreciation to Earl Fitzwilliam and his trustees and to the Director of the Sheffield City Libraries for permission to quote from this document.

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71 Norfolk R.O., How 758/27.

72 Wilts. R.O., 383/114: G.L. Michell to R.C. Hoare, 3 Dec. n.y. [early 1800s].

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78 Essex R.O., D/DAr C7/15.

79 Norfolk R.O., How 750/25.

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