Anthony Adrian Keith-Falconer fox hunting journal

Anthony Adrian Keith-Falconer, 7th Earl of Kintore (1794-1844) was a leading practictioner of the fox-hunt, his renown glowingly extolled by "Nimrod" (Charles James Apperley) in his "Hunting Reminiscenses: Comprising Memoirs of Masters of Hounds" (1843). Apperley referred to him as "the most ardent lover of fox-hunting for it's own sake alone, that has ever come across my path up to the present period of my life... a theoretical and practical sportsman of the first rank... I greatly admire the style of hounds Lord Kintore breeds ... in the kennel. Lord Kintore shines as a huntsman; no one understnads condition better than he does, and in the season he never fails to feed his hounds himself..." The injuries that he suffered in the pursuit most likely led to his death at age 50, at a time when he was no longer able to participate in his passion. His son, Lord Inverurie, a lieutenant in the 17th Lancers, was killed during a hunt at age twenty-one. For a long account of the earl's fox-hunting, see F. C. Loder-Symonds and E. Percy Crowdy, "A History of the Old Berks Hunt from 1760 to 1904), which says: "He was a rider bold to rashness, greedy for fences, and he was also celebrated as a boon table companion. The memory of Lord Kintore's jumping feats stil linger in the old Berks country... In a fast run of ten miles from Crab Tree, near Highworth, to Uffington, in which several horses were killed, one or two in the field, his Lordship jumped Sevenhampton Brook, (The River Cole) a feat which 'Nimrod' says has never been performed before or since."