£/ 76 7(32 BULLOCH (John I.Ialcolm) J,
The last Baird of Auchmedden and Strichen
ABERDEEN 1934 National Library of Scotland
*B000 196410*
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2012 with funding from National Library of Scotland
http://www.archive.org/details/lastbairdlairdofOObull THE LAST BAIRD LAIRD OF AUCHMEDDEN AND STRICHEN THE CASE OF MR. ABINGTON
BY JOHN MALCOLM BULLOCH
ABERDEEN PRIVATELY PRINTED 1934
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Manchester 1. Telei Manchester Office . » ithy Grove, ALLIED NEVv
COBS IOKO CAMKOSE, rman. !i\RT., GR. n- puf ; Chairman
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* """ W M, TKA IiB ALS
nine counties, ranging from Inverness to deteriorated, as he undoubtedly did, when Dumfries on the west and Berwick on the he gave up having to keep fit for racing— east. than those writers, most of them jour- nalists, followed career a Matching the curious fact that great who his as man- about-town in he was, even soldiers frequently have no male issue, London, where in the early 'nineties, almost the last of or only poor specimens, four of these eight the Mohicans. They play the Pierce captains of industry had no issue, leaving Egan to his career, or, when they moralise, they their property to the other four brothers, perform who had between them only nine sons and the function of Holcroft in bring- ing " " eight daughters. Mr. Abington was par- The Road to Ruin up to date. Indeed, one peer has ticularly lucky as a legatee, for his father, who knew him well bluntly described him to as a George of Strichen, inherited Stichill, in me " ruffian," expressed Roxburgh, from his brother David, who and his surprise that I should " waste my time " in piecing his bought it in 1853 for £150,000, and he him- story together. I do it to show the violent self got Auchmedden from his uncle and almost incredible contrast between James, a man of great force of character Mr. Abington and the remarkably indus- the last of the eight brothers to die (in trious and enterprising family from whom 1875) —although, unhappily, Mr. Abington he sprang: the pit from which he was dug did not inherit the quality which had made would be an absolutely literal phrase. James give £500,000 to the Church of If George Baird of Strichen had not died Scotland. Before he finished his rake's suddenly at Strichen House in the autumn
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THE LAST BAIRD LAIRD OF AUCHMEDDEN AND STRICHEN. THE CASE OF MR ABINGTON.
George Alexander Baird, better known progress, Mr. Abington made some of the as " Mr. Abington," the gentleman jockey, Baird millions melt like last year's snow. laird of Auchmedden, the cradle of the Although a great deal has been written northern Bairds, and of Strichen in Aber- from first to last about Mr. Abington, it deenshire and of Stichill in Roxburgh, who is scattered through the lighter, and some- flickered out his wasted life at New Orleans times scandalous, papers of the period, in March, 1893, at the age of thirty-two, and in gossipy books by racing folk, men- forms a strikingly ironic illustration of the about-town and journalists. Baird figures self-defeating contrasts which are constantly in no book of reference except Boase's to be found in families. He represented, comprehensive " Modern English Bio- " on an exaggerated scale, everything that graphy "—Burke's " Landed Gentry his family, the millionaire mining Bairds naturally does not mention his racing name of Gartsherrie, were not. The industry of Mr Abington—and nothing approaching from which they drew their millions : and a regular biography has been attempted. the land, to, which as hereditary farmers One of his neighbours at Kelso, who knew they were passionately devoted, and in him as a boy, and who watched his short which they invested large parts of their career with appalled " amazement," tells fortune, made no appeal to him. His me he would like to write a little book, tastes, wholly uncontrolled, were all for after the pattern of Nimrod's classic book sport—the Turf, the * ring—and riotous on the notorious Jack Mytton. Again, a living, all conducted on the most spend- Scotsman in Lancaster, a racing expert, thrift scale. who knew him well, informs me that he The story of the Gartsherrie Bairds reads has thought of writing a book about him— " like a modern version of Aladdin. It or as much about him as can be told." began with Mr. Abington's grandfather, That is just it. A great deal of it cannot Alexander Baird (1765-1833), a little crofter be told, for Baird really belonged in spirit in Lanark, who married a hard-headed to the eighteenth century, and we have servant lass, Jean Moffat. In 1809, at the not got eighteenth century conditions. age of forty-four, he began to work a coal Again, so far as the later part of his career mine. Helped all the time by his eight is concerned, some of the people with sons, he became an ironmaster in 1828, whom he had associated are still alive. and in the course of a few years the Bairds In going over all sources of information were turning out 300,000 tons of iron a year, about him, both in books and unwritten and employing 10,000 men, while the for- recollections—for I have simply made a tunes accumulated by the eight brothers mosaic of them all —I find that the racing must have run into several millions, of men who knew him take a far more lenient which £2,000,000 were invested in land in view of him—if only because he had not nine counties, ranging from Inverness to deteriorated, as he undoubtedly did, when Dumfries on the west and Berwick on the he gave up having to keep fit for racing— east. than those writers, most of them jour- Matching the curious fact that great nalists, who followed his career as a man- soldiers frequently have no male issue, about-town in London, where he was, even or only poor specimens, four of these eight in the early 'nineties, almost the last of the captains of industry had no issue, leaving Mohicans. They play the Pierce Egan to his their property to the other four brothers, career, or, when they moralise, they who had between them only nine sons and perform the function of Holcroft in bring- ing " " eight daughters. Mr. Abington was par- The Road to Ruin up to date. Indeed, ticularly lucky as a legatee, for his father, one peer who knew him well has bluntly George of Strichen, inherited Stichill, in described him to me as a " ruffian." Roxburgh, from his brother David, who and expressed his surprise that I should " waste my time " in piecing his bought it in 1853 for £150,000, and he him- story together. self got Auchmedden from his uncle I do it to show the violent and almost Jamas, a man of great force of character incredible contrast between Mr. Abington and the remarkably the last of the eight brothers to die (in indus- trious and enterprising 1876) —although, unhappily, Mr. Abington family from whom he sprang: the from did not inherit the quality which had made pit which he was dug would be an absolutely literal James give £500,000 to the Church of phrase. If George Baird of Strichen Scotland. Before he finished his rake's had not died suddenly at Strichen House in the autumn
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of 1870, it is probable that his nine-year-old pedestrian, who was a sort of Mr Abington millionaire heir, George Alexander Baird, of his time. might have turned out very differently In addition to Strichen, where he found from what he did, and might probably only eight slated houses, George Baird, as have founded a real live landed family. noted, had also come in for the estate of At any rate, he might not have become a Stichill in Roxburgh. In all he owned jockey like Mr Abington, and ended so 17,000 acres, bringing in £20,000 a year. tragically, or, rather, sordidly, as he did at Thus, with two estates to his credit, George the early age of thirty-two. Baird decided to settle down and become " The Gartsherrie Bairds' attempts to somebody of the county " type. So at found a family in the North failed on three the mature age of forty-eight he married occasions as follows: an Irish gentlewoman, Cecilia, elder daughter of Vice-Admiral Villiers Francis (1) In 1854, Robert Baird, the fifth of the brothers, bought the estate of Auch- Hatton of Clonard, Wexford, M.P. for his county. I not medden, the parish in Aberdour, from the do know how or where he met her. Forbeses of Newe and Edinglassie. He She was five-and-thirty at the time did so with the idea of bringing back into and had little or no fortune. But she belonged the possession of a Gartsherrie Baird an to the Quality, and had known the great estate which had been held for two Duke of Wellington—a friend of her father who had written hundred and fifty years by one of the old — her letters which she lines of the Bairds, who had footled away used to show proudly to her friends: I wonder what has of their fortune in a. way not unknown to become them. She suited landowners. An old fret predicted that Baird, for though his neighbour at Kelso, there would be an eagle in the crags at Sir George Douglas, Bart, of Pennan while there was a Baird in Auch- Springfield Park, a great friend of the late Sir William medden. When the estate was sold in 1750 Robertson Nicoll, says it was a "marriage to Lord Aberdeen, the eagles vanished, of convenience," yet she fitted' although Lord Aberdeen's son, Lord the frame, for what the laird of Strichen Haddo, had married a Baird of Newbyth, wanted was a "lady who could take the sister of the great Sir David. The same head of his table with credit and rule Earl of Aberdeen bought Gight, of which his household in the great manner." another fateful fret, this time about herons, The marriage ceremony was certainly per- was whispered. Haddo, at anyrate, was formed in the "gr^at manner," and duly killed by a fall from his horse at Gight. announced in the "Times": "On the 15th To return to Auchmedden, the eagles did inst. [Nov., 1858], at St George's, Hanover Square, not reappear till Robert Baird became the by the Rev. John Rashdall, in- laird, when they flew back, only, however, cumbent of Eaton Chapel [of which St to vanish again, when the coastguardsmen George's was the mother church], George at Pennan tried to shoot them. Robert Baird, Esq., of Strichen, to Cecilia, Baird did not enjoy the property long, for daughter of Vice-Admiral Hatton." Eaton he died unmarried in August, 1855, at the Chapel, which stood on the Sloane Square age of fifty. side of Eaton Square, has been replaced by a block of flats. Mr Rashdall, who became (2) Auchmedden then passed to his vicar forceful brother James, who in 1853 had of Dawlish, and died in 1869, was the father bought the estate of Cambusdoon in Ayr, of the late Dean Hastings Rash dall, the learned and who in 1857 acquired Knoydart in historian of mediaeval Inverness. James also died without issue, universities. in 1876, his will being sworn under In 1860, George Baird became still more £1,190,000. important by inheriting the estate of (3) Auchmedden then went to his Stichill in Roxburgh from nis youngest nephew, George Alexander Baird, Mr and unmarried brother David. Stichill had Abington, and he did not even marry. formerly belonged to the Pringles, of whom the late Lady Gordon Cathcart was Besides at Auchmedden, the Bairds had one. taken root at Strichen, for George Alex- MR ABINGTON'S BIRTH. ander's father, George, bought it from Lord Lovat in 1855, the year after Robert bought Three years after the marriage a son was Auchmedden. He paid £145,000 for it, born to the Bairds, the event taking place which was from £20,000 to £30,000 more on September 30, 1861, at Barry's British than it had been valued a few years before, Hotel, 70 Queen Street, Edinburgh—the when it was offered in three lots. The Edinburgh Ladies' College now stands on North had been further favoured by them, the site—for their huge house at Stichill, for Alexander, the third of the eight replacing an unpretentious structure, had brothers, bought TJrie in 1854, the same not yiet been built, and it was probably year as Robert bought Auchmedden, and thought that Strichen was too far off; so they hold it still in the person of Lord that the boy was not a Buchan loon in Stonehaven, one of the very few members any sense of the phrase. By a curious of the family who still own an estate irony, George Alexander Baird, born in a bought by the eight brothers. Curiously hotel, ended his strange and sad career in enough, Urie had also been frittered away a hotel at New Orleans thirty-two years by a sportsman—from whose trustees Baird later, and in between times the word home bought it—Robert Barclay Allardice, the was unfamiliar in his vocabulary.
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The child's arrival gave George Eaird the David of Stichill had been a hunting man hope of raising a landed family, and he and later with his prodigal escapades. set about building a home for it at Stichill, Under a trust settlement, a document of much as Scott did at Abbotsford, ten miles 44 foolscap pages, which was made on away. The foundation stone was laid in January 15, 1870, a few months before his great style by Susanna, Duchess of Rox- death, George Baird left his widow the use burghe, who outlived Mr Abington, for of Strichen House, together with an George Baird had' been accepted by "the annuity of £1500 under her marriage con- county,"which pressed him, without suc- tract of November 13, 1858, though on her oeas, to stand as a Conservative; all the remarriage she was to get only the £1,500. Baird brothers were strong Tories, though In case her son predeceased her she was their grandmother had been a Radical, and to get £4.000 a year. He left £25,000 for George had been defeated for the Falkirk religious, benevolent and charitable pur- Burghs in 1357. The building, in the Scots poses, ordered the lands of Cuningholm to baronial style, which took three years to be sold, and left the residue in favour of erect, being completed in 1866, cost £34,000 his son, George, on attaining the age of 25. and its size may be guessed from the fact The amount of George's estate was con- that it contained forty-three bedrooms and firmed on October 8, 1870, at £918,457 17s 3d. had a tower 100 feet high, surveying the But £3,000,000 are popularly believed to Cheviots and the Tweed, while the policies have come to Mr Abington in one way or ooveTed 62 acres. When it was completed another, though, frankly, I do not under- it was opened with a gTeat house-warming stand how the figure is arrived at. ball, to which everybody who was anybody In some articles he wrote in 1926 to the in the neighbourhood was invited. The " Weekly Scotsman " on old Border life, end of the house, nearly seventy years later, Sir George Douglas tells us that, though " was less glorious, for it was bought in Mrs Baird was an estimable woman, she October, 1930. by Mr George W. King, now was not a conspicuously amiable one," for in Sidcup, an enterprising Londoner, who, she had " something of the martinet or starting life at zero, lived many- yeaTS at disciplinarian," especially as regards her Galashiels, where he was an active mem- young women guests. She had, however, ber of the Free Kirk congregation, pre- no skill in the management of children. sided over by a charming Aberdeen The result was that from a very early graduate, the Rev. W. S. Matheson. A period young George was a handful. Only house breaker offered £800 for the house, one of the family, a Hatton relative, made which was bought by Mr King for £2000 any attempt to control him—I am assured, and sold by liiin at a very small profit in with a hunting crop. The truth seems to June, 1931. to the Leith Holiday Home. have been that the hoy had some of the The last phase of Stichill House is a sort Baird determination in him, though what of ironic symbol of the failure of this had been force in them became selfwill in branch of the Bairds to establish a family. the boy, who probably was quite well aware that he had inherited nearly a million in A MILLIONAIRE AT NINE. hard cash, which accumulated during his minority—a feeling that must have been The of George Baird dream vanished, for increased when he also came into the he was found in his dead bed at Strichen, estate of Auchmedden, which he did at the where he had gone shooting, on August 24, age of twenty-five on the death of his 1S70, leaving his only child, then a boy uncle James. Sir George Douglas also of nine, to the care of his Irish mother and tells us that his mother's house parties five trustees. They were his nephews, were mostly made up of " crocks," and William Baird of Elie and Alexander young George wanted " some more exhil- Baird, yr. of Urie, father of Lord Stone- arating evening's entertainment than an haven; Alexander Whitelaw of Gartshore excellent dinner, followed by a quiet House, father of the present chairman of rubber or a round game." the L.X.E.R., and William Weir, Crooked- holm, Ayr, who afterwards bought Kil- HIS PASSION FOR HORSE FLESH. donan, sons of the testator's sister Janet; Not unnaturally, he found more amuse- and David Wallace, Lochwood House, ment in the grooms' room. That was to Lanark, who had married Janet's daughter, be another symbol of his career. The boy Janet, Weir, and who afterwards bought had certainly something of the uncon- the estate of Glassingall, Perth. The por- ventionality of his race, for a Kelso traits of the trustees—all of them except correspondent, who knew him well, tells the laird of Elie, who sported a horse shoe me he would go about looking like a tramp, in his tie, had Victorian whiskers—show wearing old clothes and old boots. But purposeful looking captains of industry of he was mad about horses—had not his the life-is-real-life-is-earnest type. But, father built twenty stalls for them at though they could' mine and manipulate Stichill 1 Sir George Douglas remembers King Coal and Iron, they could make George as a boy of eight mounted on a nothing of their half-Irish and wholly skewbald pony and trotting up and down hobbledehoy young kinsman, as we shall the King's Road, Brighton—where his see. He must, indeed, have seemed quite mother was to die—beside a coachman, inconceivable to most of them, with his who held a leading rein. When he started avid sporting tastes—though his uncle racing he filled all the twenty stalls, a
page three " " fact which the Sportsman said on his The races at Aberdeen had been tried " death the Kelso people remembered with three times, in 1793-99, 1816-28, and 184347. a sigh." At one time he also kept Then in 1875, after a lapse of twenty-eight greyhounds at Stichill. years, they were revived by Mr Alexander Cook (1874-1904), wine merchant in the " A ROYT LOON." Upperkirkgate. In passing, let me note For a time George was in the hands of that it is curious that no attempt has been a tutor. Then he was sent to Hawtrey's made by local chroniclers to deal with the famous private school at Aldin House, history of racing in Aberdeen. Fortun- ately, Slough, from which he went to Eton at Mr Cook's daughter, Miss Jessie E. Cook, Michaelmas, 1874, boarding at Carter's, has some of the records, including a copy while Merriott was his tutor. Neither of the poster advertising the race meeting of 1825. establishment tamed George, for he fell out with the authorities, and without asking The meeting at Aberdeen on August 27, 1879, held a wet, leave went off, apparently for Christmas, on dismal day, was not under 1875, to his mother's London house at Grand National regulations, though the " " 42 South Street, Park Lane, at the corner Journal of the day said it was " of South Audley Street, seven doors from conducted in accordance with the best rules of English racing." It No. 35, where Florence Nightingale was was what is as " " then living, and ultimately died. Nego- known a flapping meeting. Baird, tiations were opened up with the head- who was just eighteen, did not ride in the advertised master, who agreed to take him back on races, for had he done so he condition that he would take a thrashing. would have been disqualified under the Rules for year. " But George refused point blank to return a What Mr Baird of Strichen," " " under such conditions to the fabulous as the Journal announced, did was to ride a " playing fields, where we used to be told match " on a horse called Fenvoy Waterloos were won. I have not been able against Mr Wilson, a Fife ironmaster, on Holyrood. Baird, to discover where he acquired the rest of who " displayed good horsemanship, came in his education, if, indeed, he ever did easy " acquire much more. Four years after an winner." The Free Press," which calls the horse " Fonvoy," leaving Eton he went to Magdalene Col- was more enthusiastic, for it stated that he " lege, Cambridge, where he was admitted won a walking race from start to finish, and on July 15, 1879, and where he spent six showing all the art of a professional jockey, terms till June, 1881. won very cleverly by two lengths." He may HE TAKES TO THE TURF. have been one of those who dined at the Palace Hotel at the meeting under the Baird's bent, however, lay not in the chairmanship of Viscount Arbuthnott. But took region of books, but of bookies, for he I am told he did not go to Strichen when in to the Turf, and began riding races while the north. Indeed, a local legend states that a still in his teens. He had displayed he used to say he believed he had a " peat passionate love of horses and riding from bog" in Aberdeenshire. He probably did not in his " Turf boyhood. Alexander Scott know it was a highly cultivated area. From " Reminiscences of Sixty Years (1925) tells Aberdeen he went on to Perth, where on " horses us that he would have discussed September 26, 1879, in a selling hunters' with a dustman." Baird's Teal racing flat race he finished second on a mare inspirer was Charles J. Cunningham, a Skirmisher out of Rosalba. He went on to great sportsman who lived near his home Edinburgh, where he was second with at Kelso; Cunningham is dealt with Ladybird on October 7, and next day enthusiastically by Mr George Lambton in finished third on Syren. In the 1880 races " Men and Horses I Have Known." Scott at Aberdeen he was represented by a six- tells us that Baird began riding as a mere year-old horse called Kinsman, which, with boy in Scotland, Galloway races and M'Ewen up, won the Golfers' Cup and the hunters' flat races claiming his attention. Innkeepers' Hurdle. Although I am told Baird never saw Strichen after his early boyhood, it is an BAIRD BECOMES " ABINGTON." interesting fact that his first appearance The veteran racing authority, a Scot by on a race course, so far as I have dis- the way, who writes in the " Sporting covered, was on the Aberdeen Links on Chronicle " of Manchester, under the name " August 27, 1879, and, even more strange, of Mankato," stated in a recent issue of this was the first racecourse I ever saw, that excellent journal, that as Baird was for I watched it as a little loonie from the dependent on his trustees for pocket " Broad Hill. I still remember the money, he managed to tap his mother raucous voices of the bookies shouting the for further supplies, and, as there seemed odds, especially on a horse they would call to be a desire to, check his further racing " Huberdeburg," by which they really proclivities, he decided to register under meant Hubert de Burgh, named, of course, Grand National Hunt rules, using the name though I did not know it at the time, after of ' Mr Abington'," apparently from the the inveterate plotter who was outlawed Lanarkshire village of that name. He rode exactly seven hundred years ago, and who for the first time under this name on married a daughter of Alexander II of October 20, 1879, at Lincoln, being unplaced Scotland. on the aforesaid Syren. He registered his page four — 1 :
A correspondent -writes : Mr. George — It is stated at Glasgow qniet that Mr. G. A Alexander Baird di d a wee bit of Baird's personalty will be very small' flapping ere he can?, e ont in what might be if indeed, there is any surplus after all called the top flfit of flat-racing, and, the debts have been paid. caused The estates are perhaps, a litt'e of that was what heavily charged, and will have to him to touch thMiddleton. 'Ranald had always seven of the leading (, Scotch papers states that "all this pounds the 7;)est of Teba, over the two princely t fortune has been squandered miles, and was backed accordingly; but on harlotry horseracing and " g prize-fighting , there were inquiries as to who Mr. Baird i was, and could he ride ? Well, he did ride
ii 1 1 1 1 curious stories of the Ranald. " Ye need na compain that ye Turf," wnicn snowed that he had some of the Baird shrewdness. lost yuir over Ranald," said one money He got to hear that the Limekilns at New- Scotchman when "all right " had been market belonging to a Mrs Tharp were for " " shouted in favour of Teba. " Ye had Ii Mr sale. I can see him now [1930], he " hose says, sitting in a chair looking at the plenty of ridin', mon ; be rode him frae !" By far man telling him about the Limekilns. tail to bea'd ' They can be bought ? ' he asked reflec-
' " Ay, fljion, and he rode the full course ' of tively. But I wonder what the stewards —never missed a square inch of it," said I say, would say if they knew I was the owner.' Imagine the another. fome position! The famous Lime- I his kilns owned by a man who had been "Oh, 3 your system of riding n T,001) warned off! Of course, all Newmarket held like pointers quartering a stubble field Bfkey up its hands in horror at the idea of the for parfridges!" wa3 the indignant reply. rside Squire being able to prevent anyone from galloping their horses "I rather have a long lean yard at the T on there." Morton jom- does not know what actually took place, winnin post than a thousand square g fti " a but it is certain that within a very short yards behind it." QOl, space of time, the Limekilns definitely It was on that afternoon, so far as we M oro passed under the control of the Jockey r Club. In any case, Morton is convinced recoil act, that Fred Archer took him in c l,y that Abington could not have been kept hand , and made a very good horseman of off the Turf for long. i'- him in the end.
' » - HIS GREAT WINNERS. fto news of the lost Fullerton np to the The ban on Baird lasted for two years, and when it was removed by the time of going to press. National f i Hunt, and ipso facto by the Jockey Club, 0(' he registered his assumed name of Mr " The remains of the late " Squire have A i Abington, abandoned his cardinal jacket a- arrived in England by the Majestic from 1: for green, and began to buy horses heavily, ta. including A.merica, under the care of Mr. Teddy Busybody, bought for him by fr- Tom Cannon the trainer, for £8800 at Lord Jiayly. They were sent on to Stitchell", Falmouth's sale, where he spent £16,000. Miear Kelso, where they will be interred in He won the Two Thousand Guineas and 'the Bairds' family vault. The will, which the Oaks with the mare, which at Mr Cle, Abington's death has been the subject of so much curiosity, fetched 3500 guineas and i "16, proved a most remunerative stock getter. will be read by Mr. Theodore Lumley of In 188* he himself rode twelve winners, after the funeral. The rumour that the «vlat beating Fred Archer himself in one race. J« deceased had left a considerable a In 1885 he bought at Doncaster for 3100 e: guineas Merry sum of money to a popular actress we Hampton, which won him fl.ie the Derby of 1887—the colt's first race in believe will prove to be unfounded, as it is [r public. His crony. Sir George Chetwynd, rumoured on good authority that Mr. ft". in his " Racing Reminiscences " (1891), '* Abington " has left the whole of his at tells us that Mr Abington was " highly wealth without reserve to his mother. at delighted," at winning his first Derby, and Oiis adds that his victory was " highly popular" Further, it is said that despite the lavish 8ne as no man had spent more money in buying pulls on the Squire's purse, the estate .As horses or " raced more straightforwardly. will still foot up to a stray " million." fly I verily believe," he goes on to say, " that he would have given half his fortune to have ridden Merry Hampton." On the terred other hand, Alexander Scott declares that iffy ") after winning the Derby Abington said
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1 il'fljjpas b,:,^
aj.ulu fact which the " Sportsman " said on his death the Kelso people " remembered with a sigh." At one time he also kept greyhounds at Stichill.
A " ROYT LOON." that it is W». For a time George was in the of cb / hands co J made by lj* j. . "sat '?,» p' a tutor. Then he was sent to Hawtrey's / ,'™> 00| TaM. agst P "" 10 famous private school at Aldin House, historyy of » /fe»$te ,^*m»J 3 * ately, M4 Slough, from which he went to Eton at \ Michaelmas, 1874, boarding at Carter's, Cook, has_ i S3?«ta ™ 'late. ««as»i while Merriott was his tutor. Neither copy of meeting establishment tamed George, for he fell out with the authorities, without asking The and to '*<**& >;•:,• -'«"«Be~ 1879, «r.B;. leave went off, apparently for Christmas, he 2iorn„ "' 8 br under (*7 Mr. ,. . ° St. 1875, to his mother's London house at / j. s , Cbad „ 42 South Street, Park Lane, at the corner of South Audley Street, seven doors from "cond^/| rules
the inveterate plotter who was outlawed Lanarkshire nnaem^^ e e*', exactly seven hundred years ago, and who for the first time under tn rs ft.b«we„rjii married a daughter of Alexander II of October 20, 1879, at Lincoln, being unplaced Scotland. on the aforesaid Syren. He registered his page four yaiiu a yuiauuiuiy Will : ; D6 Very SUiall, II, indeed, there is any surplus after all the debts have been paid. The estates are heavily charged, and colours as a cardinal jacket and Camb will have to be sold, nd 'j but it is blue cap, changing in 1884 to green not expected that they will realise tvn plum cap. more than 6nough to cover the mortgage to In 1881 he became a subscriber debts. It is understood that the racing Racing Calendar, and went to live at > J anQftn hrpprh'nwDleetfin StUdSet„Aa Willwill hbea Sold„„1J »* xt tington Hall, Lichfield, this move prol g at New- ;62 ^ market very shortly.' giving him the name of " The Squire When Mr. Baird fed any rate, Scotland saw comparatively came of age in 1881 he entered into posses- pn of him from this time onwards, he sion of nearly three-quarters of a million Strichen nothing whatever, his intd of ready money, his annual there being looked after by Mr John SI income being who had come from the south and about £100,000. One of the leading one of his sons George Baird Sleigh, Scotch papers states that "all this princely who took his M.A. in Aberdeen in fortune has been squandered on harlotry, almost at the same moment Mr Abi ' horseracing and prize-fighting." / was dying at New Orleans. The latte ™- s not visit even Stichill during the Ias»B "'P lostDS years of his life, although he was riding curious stories of the Turf," wmen snowed at Edinburgh in September, 1892. that he had some of the Baird shrewdness. He got to hear that the Limekilns at New- THE SQUIRE'S TANTRUMS. market belonging to a Mrs Tharp were for " " I am quite unqualified to deal with Mr sale. I can see him now [1930], he " Abington's career as a racing man. Those says, sitting in a chair looking at the who are interested in racing will find by far man telling him about the Limekilns. the most connected account of it by " Man- 'They can be bought?' he asked reflec- kato " in the " Sporting Chronicle " of tively. ' But I wonder what the stewards September 16, 1933, an article, I may say, would say if they knew I was the owner.' suggested by my curiosity. But some Imagine the position! The famous Lime- episodes in his riding career illustrate his kilns owned by a man who had been temperament. When the coloured cartoon warned off! Of course, all Newmarket held of him by " Lib " (Sig. Perosi), as a jockey up its hands in horror at the idea of the in his green jacket and straw-coloured side Squire being able to prevent anyone from whiskers, appeared in " Vanity Pair " on galloping their horses there." Morton actually place, October 6, 1888, the writer of the accom- does not know what took panying letterpress described Baird as " a but it is certain that within a very short very strong and resolute rider," going on space of time, the Limekilns definitely to say: "He has been reproached more passed under the control of the Jockey than once for treating the other jockeys Club. In any case, Morton is convinced in a race as if they were hostile cavalry that Abington could not have been kept and might be charged with impunity." off the Turf for long. This tendency appears to have developed at an early stage, for Alexander Scott tells HIS GREAT WINNERS. us that Baird fell foul of the stewards at The ban on Baird lasted for two years, the Ayr meeting, some time before he came and when it was removed by the National of age. The same tendency resulted in his Hunt, and ipso facto by the Jockey Club, incurring the displeasure of the National he registered his assumed name of Mr Hunt stewards, who warned him off for two Abington, abandoned his cardinal jacket years for foul riding at Four Oaks Park, for green, and began to buy horses heavily, Birmingham, on April 11. 1882, in a race including Busybody, bought for him by he won by eight lengths on Billy Banks, Tom, Cannon the trainer, for £8800 at Lord hut he was disqualified for carrying wrong Falmouth's sale, where he spent £16,000. He won the Two Thousand Guineas and The second day's sale of the late Mr. k'er the the Oaks with the mare, which at Mr airds furniture, &e„ at 36, Curzon teshire, Abington's death fetched 3500 guineas and treet, was well attended, and If 1896, proved a most remunerative stock getter. m some ked of In 1884 he himself rode twelve winners, ues unexpectedly high prices were ob- Iv that beating Fred Archer himself in one race. lined. An old English escretoire in was a In 1885 he bought at Doncaster for 3100 tahogany, full of artful little drawers and guineas Merry Hampton, which won him vague the Derby of 1887 the colt's first race in \?eon-holes, fetched 81 guineas. — A bat Mr public. His crony. Sir George Chetwynd, *jming clock in Chippendale case realised Id off. in his " Racing Reminiscences " (1891), guineas. For an oak lounge, covered |" that tells us that Mr Abington was " highly Kiorocco bound," someone gave fcewhat delighted," at winning his first Derby, and " guineas. billiard, [l his adds that his victory was highly popular" . The pool, and pyra- If as spent in onballs one no man had more money buying : averaged fifteen shillings apiece r As horses or " raced more straightforwardly. big rata black bear holding an electric bbably I verily believe," he goes on to say, " that kirn was knocked down for 12 guine.ua. l if he he would have given half his fortune to have ridden Merry Hampton." On the Iferred other hand, Alexander Scott declares that f liffy ") after winning the Derby Abington said ft page five , 1 , L
fact which the " Sportsman " said on his The rad death the Kelso people " remembered with three time a sigh." At one time he also kept Then in^ greyhounds at Stichill. years, thL ^mmm Cook (lfl A " ROYT LOON." Upperki'*/ i»t For a time George was in the hands of that it I a tutor. Then he was sent to Hawtrey's mad famous private school at Aldin House, history 4b| Slough, from which he went to Eton at Michaelmas, 1874, boarding at Carter's, while Merriott was his tutor. Neither establishment tamed George, for he fell out with the authorities, and without asking leave went off, apparently for Christmas, " ' """"Tills 1875, to his mother's London house at under / be c «/ n, JTs .?• Wood; 42 South Street, Park Lane, at the corner > ta
of ' HE TAKES TO THE TURF. »«iidi lit. v 1 1" (o ™ l aesf fi to ] i ...... Baird's bent, however, lay not in the i BcS" Heart/,,,.., ! region of books, but of bookies, for he took to the Turf, and began riding races while still in his teens. He had displayed a _ passionate love of horses and riding from W0RTaAM^7r boyhood. Alexander Scott in his " Turf PJ> " a Reminiscences of Sixty Years (1925) tells *f us that he would have " discussed horses'" ^LitencMrt^fi^sBi with a dustman." Baird's real racingJal 1 Mr.
I ""o^simto: inspirer 'was Charles J. Cunningham, 3^86 Dlr ,:" great sportsman who lived near his homflat/ at Kelso; Cunningham is dealt wit" enthusiastically by Mr George Lambton itha General o,ren TOl^cfc,/J«8^|S5ffir?W*ffi -' " bco; ."•' Men;n and Horses Ii Have Known."Jvnown.' Scojj i *&> • Sir P „. *^-gg8ftfeW/£i7«*<» fc v t-f ^SSfjso^'^acW,, tells us that Baird began riding as a mefa- Ur. £ TJ'^»^oia^ 01 ' ^ifc'^W 1)'?»ISSL ~S boy in Scotland, Galloway races ar,„ar-, /„..,.1 n CoJ ""^r ot i n ^Wi hunters' flat races claiming his attent^' / Although I am told Strichen after his early interesting fact that his on a race course, so far as I have rf*" /* < the Aberdeen Links "**& covered, was on ff /fiS*Jgf£*' */^^^WWtt»fe«W ij-STaJfaI'sbiu August 27, 1879, and, even more strand this was the first racecourse I ever for I watched it as a little loonie from Broad Hill. I still remember / 01 raucous voices of the bookies shouting 'O " V;,;,':,,^ odds, especially on a horse they would *•*£.?. £w«rn>,i Qui ft, .^fiooTiS WomsS! °-'°»( <*W •' Huberdeburg," by which they re rt / »$Y$$ **^%Sg£?&?$to T *%& &* meant Hubert de Burgh, named, of cout- h£f***^t* **toL^P«fa though I did not know it at the time,, a»r / WoS,"^ , chvei the inveterate plotter who was outlawed i.aifiiiK. exactly seven hundred years ago, and who for thai married a daughter of Alexander II of Octobe Scotland. on thfN page four ' T uu — " °T nflBTi iromro-V m, '^ »*|->
colours as a cardinal jacket and Cambridge Smith, a Scotsman like himself, and blue cap, changing in 1884 to green and a allowed Smith to run them in his own plum cap. name. Mr Abington himself went off to In 1881 he became a subscriber to the France, where he did his bit of racing Racing Calendar, and went to live at Whit- for twelve months. tington Hall, Lichfield, this move probably He also raced at Aberdeen at the 1882 giving him the name of " The Squire." At meeting, although both local dailies called any rate, Scotland saw comparatively little him simply " Abington," as if he were an of him from this time onwards, and ordinary jockey. He rode in six of the Strichen nothing whatever, his interests eight races—with other people's horses there being looked after by Mr John Sleigh, winning the Merchants' Plate, the Golfers' who had come from the south and called Cup, a pony race, and the Ladies' Cup with one of his sons George Baird Sleigh, a lad James Campbell's Miss Baldwin. He was who took his M.A. in Aberdeen in 1893, second in the Patrons' Cup and fourth in almost at the same moment Mr Abington the Traders' Cup. was dying at New Orleans. The latter did Morton also tells us that Mr Abington's not visit even Stichill during the last ten return to the fold was " one of the most years of his life, although he was riding curious stories of the Turf," which showed at Edinburgh in September, 1892. that he had some of the Baird shrewdness. He got to hear that the Limekilns at New- THE SQUIRE'S TANTRUMS. market belonging to a Mrs Tharp were for " " I am quite unqualified to deal with Mr sale. I can see him now [1930], he " Abington's career as a racing man. Those says, sitting in a chair looking at the who are interested in racing will find by far man telling him about the Limekilns. the most connected account of it by " Man- 'They can be bought?' he asked reflec- kato " in the " Sporting Chronicle " of tively. ' But I wonder what the stewards September 16, 1933, an article, I may say, would say if they knew I was the owner.' suggested by my curiosity. But some Imagine the position! The famous Lime- episodes in his riding career illustrate his kilns owned by a man who had been temperament. When the coloured cartoon warned off I Of course, all Newmarket held of him by " Lib " (Sig. Perosi), as a jockey rip its hands in hoTror at the idea of the in his green jacket and straw-coloured side Squire being able to prevent anyone from whiskers, appeared in " Vanity Fair " on galloping their horses there." Morton October 6, 1888, the writer of the accom- does not know what actually took place, panying letterpress described Baird as " a but it is certain that within a very short very strong and resolute rider," going on space of time, the Limekilns definitely to say: " He has been reproached more passed under the control of the Jockey than once for treating the other jockeys Club. In any case, Morton is convinced in a race as if they were hostile cavalry that Abington could not have been kept and might be charged with impunity." off the Turf for long. This tendency appears to have developed at an early stage, for Alexander Scott tells HIS GREAT WINNERS. us that Baird fell foul of the stewards at The ban on Baird lasted for two years, the Ayr meeting, some time before he came and when it was removed by the National of age. The same tendency resulted in his Hunt, and ipso facto by the Jockey Club, incurring the displeasure of the National he registered his assumed name of Mr Hunt stewards, who warned him off for two Abington, abandoned his cardinal jacket years for foul riding at Four Oaks Park, for green, and began to buy horses heavily, Birmingham, on April 11, 1882, in a race including Busybody, bought for him by he won by eight lengths on Billy Banks, Tom Cannon the trainer, for £8800 at Lord but he was disqualified for carrying wrong Falmouth's sale, where he spent £16,000. weights. His foul riding consisted in He won the Two Thousand Guineas and threatening to pit Lord Harrington over the the Oaks with the mare, which at Mr rails. The late Lord Suffolk and Berkshire, Abington's death fetched 3500 guineas and in the " Badminton Magazine " of 1896, proved a most remunerative stock getter. tells us that Mr Abington remarked of In 1884 he himself rode twelve winners, the occasion: "How could I know that beating Fred Archer himself in one race. he was a lord ? I thought he was a In 1885 he bought at Doncaster for 3100 farmer. 1 guineas Merry Hampton, which won him Morton, his trainer, who is rather vague the Derby of 1887—the colt's first race in about the episode, does not think that Mr public. His crony. Sir George Chetwynd, Abington should have been warned off. in his " Racing Reminiscences " (1891), " Rather do I think," he says, " that tells us that Mr Abington was " highly his wild behaviour generally somewhat delighted," at winning his first Derby, and incensed the stewards," for " all his adds that his victory was " highly popular" escapades were harmless enough if one as no man had spent more money in buying regarded them in their proper light." As horses or " raced more straightforwardly. it was, Baird, he thinks, would probably I verily believe," he goes on to say, " that have been pardoned by the stewards if he he would have given half his fortune to had apologised, but this he refused. have ridden Merry Hampton." On the While still under the ban, he transferred other hand, Alexander Scott declares that his horses to his crony Ross (" Stiffy ") after winning the Derby Abington said:
page five !
" I would rather win a selling plate if I sional jockey," for, as he had a tendency could ride the winner"; while Nathaniel to put on flesh, he was compelled to be Gubbins, writing in 1903, after saying that very abstemious tin his habits, and to a worse set of horses had rarely competed resort to " heroic methods for keeping in a Derby, remarked that Abington " took down his riding weight to under ten no pride in leading in Merry Hampton." stones." Mr J. B. Booth in his entertaining But " Mankato," for his part, assures us book, " ' Master ' and Men," tells us that that it is " certainly not true " that he at Newmarket at a race time Baird was one would rather have won a hunter's flat than of the earliest on the Heath of a morning, a classic winner, for, though he was and would ride in ten or twelve trials " desperately keen to ride winners," he before breakfast. was still more keen after 1884, when he It has often been said that Mr Abington was restored to the Turf, to win good liked to ride winners anywhere. At one classic races under Jockey Club rules. time, says Lord Suffolk, he would have given " almost anything " for the chance MR ABINGTON AS A RIDER. of being a winner. According to his trainer, All the racing experts—who knew him in Charles Morton, he would travel hundreds the days when he was still keen on racing of miles and spend thousands of pounds and riding—are agreed that he was an merely for the honour and glory of getting excellent horseman. True, Lord Suffolk first past the post. "And, by Jove, didn't lie says he " taught himself to ride by power love beating one of the crack professionals of the purse." Again, " Mankato " states He liked nothing better than the thrill of that as " a callow youth he was far from beating one of the crack professionals! He being a good horseman." But he set him- liked nothing better than the thrill of self to learn the business thoroughly. having £5000 on a horse in a tin pot selling Indeed, Lord Suffolk tells us his aim and race." This is borne out by Sir George object were to look like and ride like Chetwynd, who in 1886-7 was a partner with Baird in a jockey among jockeys. Certain it is he running four horses, and who " was the first amateur who obtained special says that his greatest pleasure was to permission from the stewards to ride among ride himself." He goes on to state that professionals. His " Vanity Fair " com- Mr Abington is " quite indefatigable in mentator says he had not " a particularly travelling all over England to ride races, elegant seat, and would be better in this and has constantly lost large sums of respect if he took a lesson in deportment money by riding horses belonging to other from the jockey Watts," who rode Merry people in selling races, and making the Hampton in the Derby for him, and the owner a present of the surplus money it priority of whose services was retained has cost him to buy his horse back again." with a fee " such as the most popular of Similarly, Lord Suffolk tells us that some of Queen's counsel would be proud to secure." Baird's selling plate triumphs must have " On the other hand Alexander Scott calls cost him a small fortune, where part of him a " superb rider," and says that he the bargain was that, in addition to the was " noi only the crack gentleman rider stable being on to nothing, he was to buy of his day, but the best I have ever seen in the winner, an arrangement by which in my sixty years' connection with the the owner of the second, perfectly cog- Turf." Indeed, he " suffered nothing by nisant of the terms, was not unwilling to comparison " with great professional profit largely." Sir George Chetwynd jockeys like Archer, Watts, and Tom reminds us that after Mr Arthur Coventry Cannon. Charles Morton, who trained for gave up riding, Mr Abington in 1891 him, calls him in " My Sixty Yeais on headed the list of gentleman riders not only in the Turf " (1930), " easily " the finest winning mounts, but in ability. " amateur jockey in England, who " always His obituarist in Baily's Magazine," a first-rate " aspired to be a second Archer." Again, authority, stated there were Arthur Yates, the trainer and gentleman few professionals who could beat him." rider, declared in his autobiography:—"I In short, he displayed on the Turf the do not think I ever saw his equal among mastery which the Bairds had shown in amateur jockeys. Some of his perfor- trade. mances could not have been surpassed by the finest professionals of the day." Then AN INCALCULABLE MASTER. the late Alfred E. T. Watson, as " Hot- Trainers had difficulties with him. Prom spur " in the " Daily Telegraph," declared first to last he had a great many, including in his obituary of Baird in that paper, that Tom Cannon, Arthur Yates, Gurry, and " few amateur horsemen attained a greater Morton. The last tells us that sometimes amount of proficiency," and he saw no Baird had more horses than he knew of, reason to change his opinion when he and that they were scattered over many wrote his autobiography a quarter of a stables in England, and were sometimes century later, for there he says that Baird, run under the names of his different " an excellent judge of a horse," was " so trainers. Stevens and then Gurry trained' admirable a rider that he often held his Merry Hampton. Then after a great deal own against the very best of the profes- of urging Charles Morton became his sional jockeys." trainer at Bedford Lodge, Newmarket, from According to " Vanity Fair," he under- 1888 to 1892, and found him an exigent went " far more fatigue than any profes- and incalculable master. His purchases, —
which are fully described by " Mankato," respects Mr Abington was a complete were certainly not all of the best. Thus anachronism. Gallinule, a persistent blood-vessel breaker, It is difficult, if not impossible, to decide never won a race for Baird, but his stock where Baird's racing stage ended and was so good that he sired seven winning where the prize ring one began. What two-year-olds in one season, though Baird seems to have happened was that the two did not live to see the feat. merged into one another imperceptibly. Baird was master of the Newmarket Drag At that time fighting men were more con- Hounds, succeeding poor Fred Archer, who nected' with the turf than they are to-day, died in 1886. Curiously like enough, Fred and Baird was much more likely to meet Archer and some other professional them than he would have been to-day. jockeys, Baird, not pigskin, when in the Indeed, one of his boxing mentors tells us " hated any horse that was not as quiet that he received his summons from Baird as an old sheep," and the " Pink 'Un," by telegram at Tattersall's at Warwick, to ' repeated by Mr J. B. Booth in " ' Master wait upon the Squire in his London house, and Men," tells an extraordinary story of which he duly did. Furthermore, Mr his once giving away a horse in the Park Abington, at least to begin with, used when it did not please him in point of these people to keep himself fit. But in manners. addition to that, the "Sportsman" assures Mr Abington betted heavily and some- us that Baird was "a passionate lover of times recklessly, but he won £20,000 in the 'the art' in all its phases, and that one of Cambridgeshire of 1886, which broke the the most sighed-for pleasures of his life heart of Fred Archer, who rode the Duchess was to see a keen set-to," wherein he of Montrose's St Mirin, while his winnings transferred the fight for business, which during the years 1888-1892 totalled £40,116. had inspired his ancestors, to the ring. After his death his eighty-six horses The kind of fighting he preferred was the fetched between them £14,490. I may note old-fashioned type of the pugilist, as dis- that his cousin, Douglas Baird, was also tinguished from the boxer as we know keen on the Turf. him: which only showed again that the Squire was an anachronism. The old BAIRD AND THE PRIZE RING. pugilism practically came to an end in Augustus Feverel, in Meredith's phrase, 1889, when his friend Jem Smith drew lost his leg and ceased to be an officer of for the championship with Frank Slavin. the Guards. B|y the same token, the Baird's friend, Charley Micthell (1861- Squire lost his interest in the Turf, and 1918) belonged to the older school. ceased be Abington. to Mr He trans- Certainly the recklessness with which ferred his main enthusiasms from racing be plunged into the ring and the wild to the ring; he exchanged jockeys and life of a man about town in London, were trainers for prize fighters; and the general more marked after he got control of his impression of the his commentators on fortune, which he hid on attaining the career, especially the racing ones, is that age of twenty-five in 1886. Till that time he made a bad deal in this, his second he lived in chambers at 5 Pall Mall Place, phase. above a hairdresser. Then, on coming The obituary notice in "Baily's Maga- into his money, he took a whole house, zine" is typical of the general attitude to in 1887, at 3 John Street. Berkeley Square, the subject: "It well if would have been which runs at right angles into South he had confined his attention to horse- Street, where his mother was still living flesh, and not squandered the on money in 1886, and where Florence Nightingale people pursuits hardly desirable." and died. No. 3 had been occupied by Horace Morton, his trainer, draws the same Flower, who was the brother of Lord have gone well moral: "All might with Battersea and of Lady Oxford's friend, Baird if he had stack to the Turf. But "Peter" (Lewis) Flower, and who died as towards the of with him end my time the result of a hunting accident in 1885, associated with the prize (1892) he became leaving over £90,000, and making Lord fighting fraternity." He even stopped Huntly's brother. Lord Douglas Gordon, also says going to race meetings. Morton one of his trustees. that many people "tried their utmost to prevent him from coming a cropper, but ONGOINGS IN JOHN STREET. alas, he would listen to none of them." George Lambton tells us that Baird, who John Street at that time was, and it still "was not a bad fellow at heart and good- remains, a very quiet thoroughfare, and' natured to a fault, made one or two its inhabitants must have been shocked attempts himself to break loose from his many a time at the ongoings at No. 3 prize fighting cronies, but failed." Cer- quite a modest house: it has not been tain it is his last year or two of life was altered since his day'—where Baird lived so racketty that his end in the spring of riotously till his death, visited by his 1893 did not take onlookers by surprise, fighting friends. Ralph Nevill tells for when he ceased to gallop on the race- us in his "Man of Pleasure" that he used course he galloped' to destruction, creating to get together three or four piano organs an extraordinary legend of recklessness in his drawing-room, and let the grinders which Tecalls the eighteenth rather than play against each other. I may say that I the nineteenth century. Indeed, in many took a look at his house the very day
page seven : "
(November 4, 1933), when Gordon Richards Baird took Sir Frederick Johnstone's place equalled the 246 wins record of Fred at Windsor, he turned the harness room Archer, whom Baird had beaten on occa- into a gym. On the other hand, Mr J. B. sion. Booth, in " Old Pink 'Un Days," says that But though Baird came into his money, Baird's " one great vanity was his belief in and often squandered it, he could also be his tremendous hitting power, and that very careful about it, for his "Vanity Fair" heaven had designed him to be champion commentator noted in 1888 that, while he of England, a belief that cost him tens of had a "number of hangers-on," yet he was thousands of pounds." "too shrewd to be victimised to any con- One of the fights he was connected with siderable extent, and did not allow the was that between Jem Smith and Frank parasite to devour his substance." His Slavin, which took place on December 23, trainer, Morton, who took post with him in 1889, at a chateau near Bruges, tenanted that very year, corroborates this by saying by a retired captain of the Cameron High- that Mr Abington did not like losing money landers. This encounter, which is described
" ' ' "any more than the rest of us" ; while J. B. by Mr Booth in Master and Men," Booth in "Old Pink 'Un Days" says that cost Mr Abington his membership of the in certain moods it was "a sheer physical Pelican Club, which he had joined on its pain to him to have to part with his formation in March, 1887. The committee money." of the club summoned him on January 7, 1890, when he denied that he had led HIS DEBUT AS BACKER. roughs in favour of Smith. The committee, According to the obituary notice in the however, declared that he used abusive " Sportsman," Mr Abington made his debut language to Slavin. On January 29 Lord as a backer of prize fighters in the fight Queensberry, who drew up the famous between Edwin (" Nunc ") Wallace, of rules for boxing, moved, and Lord Lons- Birmingham, against W. Goode, of Batter- dale seconded, that he be ejected, and this sea, for the 8 stone 2 lb. championship for was carried unanimously. On February 3 £100 a side. This fight, which took place the club decided that " the conduct of on March 5, 1889, in the Exchange Club, Mr Baird at the ring side on the occasion Queen Street, Cheapside, London, created of the Smith and Slavin fight was, in the an immense amount of interest, and was opinion of the committee, unbecoming a reported in the " Sportsman " to the extent gentleman and a member of the Pelican of two columns. Eight rounds were fought, Club " : so he was called on to resign. when the partisans broke up the ring in Next day he wrote a letter, quoted by Mr great excitement, the timekeeper being Booth, to John Corlett, editor of the " Pink
: — " bullied and hustled just like a ball in 'Un " "Knowing that I am perfectly a Rugby football match." But the decision innocent of the grave charge against me, " fell to Nunc " Wallace (age 22: 5ft. 2in. I am sure I may rely on you to assist me 7 stones 11 lbs.), who inflicted " terrible with reference to the attempt to expel me punishment" on Goode (age 27: 5ft. 3in. from the Pelican Club." In the same letter 7 stones 10 lbs.). The seconds of Wallace, he states that he had received sympathy who escaped with scarcely a scratch, were from Robert Martin of " Ballyhooley Jack Baldock, the grandfather of Teddy fame. A week or two later, Baird raised Baldock of to-day, and Baird's friend, Jem an action in the Chancery Court before Mr Carney, who, like Wallace, was born (in Justice Stirling, a native of Aberdeen, ask- 1856) in Birmingham. A few days later ing that the club, of which Cecil Raleigh, we find dramatist, secretary, should be I Mr Abington and Lord Huntly's the was brother, Lord Granville Gordon—what a restrained from expelling him. His case tale of life he could have told '—among the was presented by Sir Charles Russell and patrons of a boxing tournament which took Sir Horace Davey, but the judge decided place at the Agricultural Hall, Islington, on March 7 against Baird in a learned on March 11-16, 1889. From this point judgment reported at great length in the " onwards Baird backed many fights, and Sportsman," to which Baird was always it was in one of these backings that he a matter of prime interest. The case was came by his death. then carried to the Court of Appeal on April 23, but was not proceeded with, for A BOXING MENTOR. Baird stated through counsel that he did Baird employed Jem Carney, the veteran not wish to continue his membership. bareknuckle fighter, who is still very much After he was expelled from the club he alive, to keep him fit. Carney, who tells took over his old friend, Sir George Chet- us he was installed in the Tavistock Hotel wynd's house, 36 Curzon Street, apparently, Covent Garden, went round to Baird's as Ralph Nevill suggests, with the idea of house at eight o'clock every morning. making a club of it. The house, I may say, " We used " to take a turn in the Park is almost opposite Lord Crewe's spacious Carney " told Empire News " readers in mansion, and almost next door to Sunder- 1929, " returning to the house, and after a land House, which was built for the present good rub down, don gymnasium togs and Duke of Marlborough. The story, as told have three hot rounds with the gloves— by Nevill, is that Baird happened to be and, let me tell you, when it came to using dining one night with Chetwynd, and made the mufflers, the Squire was nobody's an offer for the house, lock, stock, and' fool. ' Carney also tells us that when barrel, and as it was accepted, he installed
page eight himself right away, and was astonished Squire as " the most eccentric, wild, yet next day to find himself in a strange bed. big-hearted Scotsman " he ever met. " 1 should think," he adds, " that the Squire BAIRD'S LIFE IN LONDON. was the funniest mixture of a man that The escapades engaged in, or attributed ever lived. One moment he would do to, Baird, are simply legion, forming some- something that was enough to get him thing like the story of Benson, the hanged, and the next he would do some- " Jubilee Plunger," whom Baird knew. thing that would make his name be ever Some of them, indeed, almost seem to indi- blessed by someone or other. Those who cate that on occasion " the Squire," as he saw only the wild side of this gentleman," " came more and more to be called, was not he goes on to say, could never imagine all there. the hours he sat with me for this and that, When in London he painted the town and I never found him far wrong." Ralph red. His favourite howff was the famous Nevill mentions as an example of his good- Romano's, in the Strand, where he in- heartedness that when the wife of one of dulged in all kinds of horse play. The his friends, Captain X., came to ask help " Man of the World " states that people, for her husband, who was very ill in who tolerated having their hats bashed in France, Baird sent over a doctor and saved by him, or being drenched with whisky the patient's life. and soda, had " no difficulty in touching him for a good round sum." Mr Booth HIS LADY FRIENDS. " ' " Baird also " " side, tells us in Master ' and Men that at had a romantic and the Squire's house strange characters were many stories are told of his lady friends. generally to be found " comfortably domi- Thus Ralph Nevill, who span out the ciled. The expense of maintaining these gossip about Baird through several of his delectable guests and providing them with rattled-up books, tells us that Baird once pocket money used to cost the host, so he made a dead set at the wife of a well-known boasted, over £1500 a week. His devices sporting man, and asked her to elope with to make money fly were numerous and him. It was arranged that she should ingenious, a typical one being to open get £100,000, which she duly did—and several dozen of the finest champagne, shared it with her spouse, never seeing drink, with his companions, one glass out Baird again. Another piece of gossip tells of each bottle, and throw the rest away." us that he gave £100,000—the figures seem As an example of his extravagance, Baird, far too large even for a millionaire, to be we are told by Ralph Nevill, used to have even approximately true—to a lady, borrow- a bill for fresh fruit, of which he was very ing it at 10 per cent, from a moneylender. fond, running into £2000 a year. Notwithstanding, she jilted him. That Jem Carney, in his autobiographical "hurt the Squire to the quick," and Morton sketches in the " Empire News," tells us tells us that he got back on her by sending that one of the Squire's favourite places her a dead cat as a Christmas box. for entertaining his friends was the Blue His expenditure is certainly exaggerated " Post, not far from his solicitors' office in by the " Kelso Chronicle —which gave an the west end, a house long famous for its amazingly frank account of him, for a local marrow bones. After dinner he would paper, on the occasion of his death—for it take his party to the Empire or the stated that " one fashionable beauty who Alhambra, going on after the show to the placed herself under his protection was Criterion or the Cafe Royal. And then, eventually rewarded with a broken jaw. " with just enough liquor under his belt to She, however, took compensation in her make him adventurous," he would have a way and surgical aid with £50,000 with " look round the East End," or visit Covent which she had despoiled her drunken Garden in the early hours of the morning. protector." This is an exaggerated ac- " Sometimes, Carney goes on to say, he went count of the affair,, which was the talk round the Seven Dials, " where you didn't of London. I have reason to believe the want any wings sprouting on your shoulder lady, who was not so severely damaged as blades at three o'clock in the morning. I suggested, was mollified with £30,000. A was no chicken." adds Carney, " and could friend of mine tells me he saw its entry stand as much as the next fellow, but the in her pass book. Squire's idea of fun, and mine, did not always go together, and many a time I MAKING MRS LANGTRY " MR JERSEY." have trotted off home to get away from the One of his great friends was Mrs Langtry, Squire's idea of what a little excitement of whom Dame Kendal recently wrote, " I should be." wonder where in God's great universe she It was just the same when he went out is." Morton says Baird was " desperately of London. Thus Carney tells us that when fond " of her. You will, however, look in Mr Abington was hunting at Ascot he com- vain for any mention of him by name in missioned him to get up a prize fight in a the lady's adroit autobiography, " The barn in the early hours of the morning, Days I Knew." She merely speaks of him " for which two Birmingham pugilists were as an eccentric young bachelor with vast ! imported, and gave a " terrific slam." An estates in Scotland, a large racing stud, attempt was also made to get up a cock a racing stable, and more money than he fight. knew what to do with." Summing him up, Carney describes the One day towards the close of 1891, while r K —
lunching at her house, Baird offered her Street and at his racing place, Bedford " abruptly " his two-year-old chestnut colt, Lodge, Newmarket. In the divorce case Milford. The offer was at first hastily Abington, who was represented by Sir refused, till one of the guests with racing Charles Russell and Mr Inderwick, said predilections urged her to accept the colt. that he did not know she was married, as But the horse continued to be housed in she had been in 1887, in which he was the donor's stables, and she forgot all supported by his London housekeeper, about it till Weatherby, the publishers of Maggie Leask. But he was judged guilty, the Racing Calendar, wrote requesting her and had to pay £500 damages. A little to register her colours, which she did. This later she married the son of a famous Scots was her start in racing, which she took up minister. " Milford very success- as Mr Jersey." was Six days after the divorce case Mr it the ful, and on the day won Royal Two Abington's name figured much more sen- Plate, refused £10,000 for it, ^Year Old she sationally in the newspapers, for a fierce Mr Abington also gave Mrs Langtry her I fight took place in his house in John Street famous yacht, the White Lady . He was I at two o'clock on the morning of March 5. also interested, I believe, in some of her On March 6, the day before Mr Justice Stir- lived at theatrical ventures. Mrs Langtry ling delivered judgment in the Pelican Club without this time in Pont Street. It is not case, Baird's crony, Mitchell, was charged its irony that at the other end of the street with assaulting Arthur Cockburn, a profes- his uncle, James Baird, had helped to build sional backer, described as " gentleman," St Columba's Church with a handsome and William Joseph Goode, a prizefighter donation. known as " Chesterfield " Goode—quite different from the featherweight, W. Goode, 1890, MR ABINGTON'S LURID YEAR. who figured in the first fight backed by It was another theatrical lady who Banrd in 1889. Cockburn had a contused introduced Mr Abington to the most excit- eye, and Goode's head had been so badly ing year of his life, 1890, for within one battered that he had to be taken to St month he made appearances in the Divorce George's Hospital. The inhabitants of Court as a co-respondent, in the Court of John Street must certainly have been Chancery as a plaintiff, and in the Police roused out of their sleep at two o'clock Court as witness in a lurid assault case. that March morning, when the street In fact, the actual hearing of the cases " " resounded with cries of Police ! for a was simultaneous. His appearance in the scene had been enacted recalling in some Divorce Court on February 27 was as co- respects the lurid episode dramatised by respondent in the divorce suit brought by the late John Lawson in the melodrama, Francis Darbishire, the actor, claiming " Humanity," which used to be played by £10,000, against his wife, Agnes Hewitt, him in Aberdeen. The case occupied the actress, who had made a hit at the magistrate at four sittings, at the last of " Olympic Theatre, London, in The Points- which, on April 2, Mitchell was charged man," by R. C. Carton and Cecil Raleigh, only with assaulting Goode. the latter of whom, as noted, was secretary So much loose, and sometimes exagger- of the Pelican Club, which Baird was ated, writing has been expended on Mr fighting at the very moment of the action. Abington that I quote the report of his Having got into financial difficulties at own evidence at the last sitting of the court the Olympic, Miss Hewitt went on tour as given in the " Times," which reported with her husband in Violet Melnotte's it at great length, though it cannot be company in Manville Fen and J. H. Darn- called a sensational journal. Far more ley's farce, "The Barrister," which visited vivid details were printed in the " Sports- Aberdeen a few weeks later without her, man," which also interviewed Cockburn. and was to cause resort to several barris- The account of the affair by George Alex- ters. They played at Liverpool during the ander Baird, as the "Times" in its accurate race week, opening March 25, 1889. Mr way called him, stated: Abington was at the meeting, having two " On the morning in question he invited horses in the Grand National, Bellona, (Charles Henry) Hannam (commission which came in fourth, and Roquefort, agent, Bradford) and (Samuel) Hodgson which was sixth with his friend Mr E. P. (bookmaker, Bradford) to his house. Cock- Wilson " up." The race was won by burn and Goode came there uninvited and Frigate, followed by Why Not, ridden by forced their way in past the servant Mr C. J. Cunningham, who had really (Maggie Leask). He quarrelled with Cock- introduced Mr Abington to the Turf. Miss burn and some blows were exchanged. To Hewitt, who had met Baird three or four avoid a bother, and for quietness sake, he years before at a theatrical ball in the Eyre went to his bedroom and retired to rest. Arms, St John's Wood, London, before she Mitchell came to his room and asked' him married Darbishire, and who may, as a if he wanted Cockburn to come to the room. first-rate swimmer, have appealed to his Witness said, No. He then heard a scuffle. sporting instincts, renewed her acquain- Cockburn came into the room, took up the ance with him in a box at the great race poker and tongs and jumped on to the on March 29. She apparently came to bed. Cockburn tried to put the poker into London with him on the following Sunday, his eye. They both fell off the bed. When after the week's, engagement was over. She the witness got out of the room he saw stayed with Mr Abington, both at John both Goode and Mitchell on the first land-
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ing. Mitchell complained thai Goode was (In 1 horse should have won "with ordinary a coward because he had struck him twice jockcyship." Just after passing the post. unawares. The witness went to the bottom Mr Abington fell off, and was badly of the stairs and saw Goode come out of shaken, lie also rode in the Edinburgh the dining room with a poker in his hand. meeting at the end of September, 1892. Goode struck at Mitchell twice with the Baird won the Edinburgh Gold Cup with poker, Mitchell avoided the first blow, but Alice, and was second on Norval in the the second one hit Mitchell on the arm, All Aged Selling Plate, and he was third causing the poker to bend. Mitchell did in another case with Remote, entered' in not have the poker in his hand. There was the name of Mr E. P. Wilson, but believed not the slightest doubt that Goode first to be Abington's own property. picked up the poker. During the whole I think his last appearance as a jockey evening Mitchell had acted as peacemaker. was at the Liverpool meeting of November, After Mitchell received the poker, he took 1392, when he rode in three races. His the poker from Goode and threw it to the own horse, Lady Roscbery, came in third gave a ground. Mitchell then Goode in the Liverpool Autumn Cup—Watts up. punch. Gockburn and Goode left the house. Goode had the poker in his possession, MR ABINGTON'S LAST ADVENTURE. ami the witness's housekeeper informed It was, however, the ring and not the him that Goode broke it by knocking it racecourse which closed the lurid career against some railings in the street. He of Abington at should say that Goode received the wound Mr New Orleans, a year almost to a day after his spill Leicester. on the head [which necessitated his re- at went to America to arrange the world's moval to St George's Hospital] hy coming He championship fight of his friend in contact with some projection when he Charley Mitchell, he to the extent of was falling down the stairs. The witness whom backed £8000 £2000 had known Cockburn for some years, but and a side against Corbett. only as an acquaintance in racing matters. Some of the gossips suggest that the Squire " Maggie Leask, the housekeeper, said came to like the limelight. He certainly that on the morning in question Mr Baird got enough of it when he left London for ordered Cockburn and Goode not to be Liverpool on February 7, 1893. The admitted. Goode and Cockburn forced "Sportsman," which "went all out" on their way in, and Goode caught Mr Baird their departure, tells us an enormous by the collar of the coat. They went into crowd went to Euston to see the party off. the diningroom, and Cockburn was very "When the saloon carriage was unlocked, outrageous and took off his coat and went the officials made a futile attempt to keep for Mr Baird. Mitchell separated them, the crowd back, but the sightseers would and Goode incited Mr Baird to hox. Cock- not be denied, overpowering a gang of burn's nose was bleeding, and Mitchell, porters who were reinforced by a posse of seeing that there was likely to be a row, the railway company's constables. Theiy asked Mr Baird to go to his room, and he rushed pell-mell down the platform." did so. Cockburn followed Mr Baird, and Mitchell's father-in-law, "Pony" Moore, the witness tried to prevent him from brought the Moore and Burgess band from doing so. Cockburn then struck her on the St James's Hall, and it played "The ." the breast, and she called out . . song that reached my heart"—sung by a A policeinspectorhad previously declared tenor named Stewart—while "Rule Britan- in evidence that when the police were nia" and "Auld Lang Syne"—probably for called Mitchell, who was fully— corroborated Baird's special benefit—followed. The by several witnesses, said : " We were all Moore family turned out in force, includ- very drunk." The presiding magistrate, ing "Pony's" wife and his daughters Mr Hannay, said he had come to the con- Victoria, who was married to Mitchell; clusion that it would be useless to send Bella, the widow of Fred Vokes, of the the case for trial, as no jury would convict; famous Vokes family; and Annie, who so Mitchell, for whom his father-in-law, married the charming coon singer, Eugene " " Pony Moore of the Moore and Burgess Stratton, who held up Mitchell's fair- Minstrels, had stood bail for £500, was h, lived little boy to the saloon window as discharged. It was also announced that the train steamed out. Among others Goode had accepted compensation. present were, as the reporters used to say, L Arthur Cockburn and Jem Carney. Baird A FALL AT LEICESTER. took with him as secretary his hotelier All this racketty life was certainly not friend, E. W. Baily, whose brother-in-law, good for a jockey, and yet Mr Abington Sir Han-y Preston, tells us in his book, had twenty-three wins on thirty mounts in "Memories," that he was equally fond of 1890. and as noted, Sir George Chetwynd, "cock fighting, badger baiting, rat killing, writing in 1891, stated that he headed the rowing, boxing, and billiards." Baird's list of winning gentlemen riders. He came valet, William Monk, also travelled' with in second, but was disqualified, on Lord hiin. Gerard's Bransdale in the High Peak Plate Ten stops were made en route, and at at Leicester on April 2, 1892— at which each halt little crowds appeared to get a meeting his cousin. Mr E. W. Baird, had a peep at the redoubtable Charley. After horse running—although the "Leicester slaying the night at the Alexandra Hotel, Post," in reporting the race, declared that the party sailed on February 9 on the
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K*S0t-^ L(Y
Cunarder Majestic. Seven weeks later the The result was that he had to be put to same vessel brought the Squire back to bed in the £t Charles Hotel, which was Liverpool—dead. the best in the town. His temperature One wonders if Baird had any pre- rapidly rose to 104 and then to 106, and he monition, for on the veryi day he left was soon found to be suffering from pneu- London he added a codicil to his curious monia, which made him delirious. Two will, to which I shall duly refer. Not- doctors warned Mitchell about Baird's withstanding that he had been riding condition, but he told one of them to through the previous racing season, he was "jolly him up," and he would soon be apparently not in the best of health. well. But the unhappy Squire got worse That it should have been "undermined," instead of better, becoming so delirious as Hotspur stated, is not to be wondered at, that, as Reuter's man said, he had con- after his racketty life. His friend Mitchell stantly to be watched lest he should do stated that Baird had intestinal trouble, himself injury. Two other doctors, Elliott and had suffered from asthma for years. and Miles, were called in, for BairdJ s On the voyage out Baird felt so ill that, relatives had got into touch with Uie according to a statement made by Ralph British consul. Nevill to a friend of mine, he offered the Fitzsimmons, the successful fighter, captain £50,000 to turn back, which was, called twice a day, and Baird was looked of course, impossible, as the vessel was after by his secretary and valet. Mitchell carrying mails. The story may not be true, went off to New York, via Buffalo, to but it is worth recording as an index to arrange for the voyage home in the the extraordinary saga which has risen Majestic on March 22. As a matter of fact, round the Squire. The party landed at the vessel brought home Baird's body, for New York—after some little legal difficulty' the Squire died at eight o'clock on the over Mitchell—on February 16. morning of Saturday, March 18, leaving Before the Mitchell-Corbett fight could this world, as he had entered it, in a hotel. come off, Abington attended the fight be- When the news reached this country the tween Jem Hall, the Australian, and Bob papers were full of it, for Reuter had sent " " Fitzsimmons, the Cornishman, who was a long telegram, which the Times did exactly the same age as Mitchell and not print, nor did it biograph him. There " Abington, in the Crescent City Athletic were column obituaries in the Standard" and the " Telegraph," and two columns in Club, New Orleans, on March 8, 1893. The " the building was packed with 12,000 people, to the Sportsman." Naturally, Kelso weeklies dealt with him at length, the see Hall knocked out in the fourth round. Kelso " Chronicle " being extremely out- THE END OF MR ABINGTON. spoken, while the " Kelso Mail " permitted itself to say that " his want of moral According to the "Times Democrat" of courage, combined with a lack of early New Orleans, Baird had, "by indiscretion," training, and the acquisition of enormous caught a bad cold on the voyage out, and wealth, made him what he was. Too early aggravated it by his "extraordinary im- to become ' lord of himself and heritage of prudence" at the fight. He acted as one woe,' caring for little beyond riding and of the seconds of Hall, and wore nothing boxing, not associating much with men of over his chest but a light undershirt that his own class in life, he too soon fell into left his neck fully exposed to a wintry the hands of sycophants and rogues." wind which whistled through the amphi- That note was struck only in a few theatre. The other seconds of the two men London papers, though London had rung were similarly attired, but nearly all of with scandal about him for years, and had them had some exercise in the matter of seen a great deal more of him than Kelso. rubbing down the men. On the other The " Man of the World " declared that hand, the Squire, whose position was he had had " a most dissolute career, and rather that of an auxiliary second than suffered his brute passions to dominate his anything else, did nothing except hand whole life. His best epitaph," it added, over the necessary articles. Besides " will be, ' It's the pace that kills'." Again, which, he had to stand in the draughts " Baily's Magazine," staid though it was, from the cold weather outside, and the said he was " surrounded by hangers-on little breezes made when Jack MAuliffe and parasites from the first; and, liking and Charley Mitchell were fanning Hall. to be king of the jovial company, he The cold, indeed, was so intense that the sought that company, we fear, among his reporters sat heavily muffled, and the inferiors. Many were the scandalous spectators shivered. rumours as to how the poor, weak, easy- As soon as the fight was over, says the going man was plundered." It ended up "Times Democrat," the Squire and his by speaking of his short career as " the friends "commenced a round of dissipa- pitiful story of a wasted life." tion." Reuter's correspondent — whose The same sort of comment had been message, by the way, was not used by the passed by several writers who have subse- London "Times"—tells us that the entire quently referred to him in their auto- party started for a "lark," and a general biographies. But Alfred E. T. Watson, in tour to various places of amusement. his life story, spoke of him as " particularly Even here Baird was unsuitably clothed, quiet and modest," though he once fell out for he had taken off his heavy clothing. with him, and Arthur Yates always saw page twelve :
" the best side of his nature, which was at house. He first designed the money to be bottom very gentle and pleasant." Yates held in trust for his mother, and then also speaks of him " conversing in his quiet after her decease for the children of his way with his head slightly cocked on one first cousins on attaining their majority. side." The " Times Democrat " of New In the codicil of November 30, witnessed Orleans described him as narrow chested, by his valet Monk, he changed this to though he also had broad shoulders, and " the children of my first cousins as shall certainly the " Vanity Pair " cartoon of be alive at the decease of the survivor of him does not give the impression of a well- my mother and myself." Under the main set-up man. He was not to be compared will the children would have taken a vested to Archer, on whom he modelled his style. interest in their shares of the estate, and been, therefore, competent to dispose of MR ABINGTON'S GRAVE. these shares by will or otherwise imme- While all the newspapers were comment- diately on Baird's own death. By the ing on Mr Abington and telling just as codicil, however, he provided that the much as they dared, the body, which had bequest should fall only to such parties as been embalmed—and, according to the should be alive " at the decease of the American custom of the time, clothed in survivor of my mother and myself." evening dress—was being brought home on According to the codicil, vesting of the the Majestic, which landed at Liverpool on shares would take place, and the legatees March 29—the only fact about his death be competent to dispose of them only on which the " Times " permitted its stately the death of Baird's mother as well as self to make, and that only in three lines. himself. In other words, vesting would Poor Baird was buried in a polished pine be postponed until the death of both. coffin beside his father in Stichill church- Baird's mother survived him, and then yard on Saturday, April 1. The funeral vesting was postponed until her death. was semi-private. His friend. Charley What the reason of this change may have Mitchell, who sent a wreath, stood on the been, of course, one can only surmise, but outskirts of the kirkyard during the inter- that is the legal effect of it. ment, and created great interest among the His executors were Walter Temple, inhabitants of Kelso. Sir George Douglas barrister, and Walter Lumley, his solicitor. speaks of him as being " by a long way The latter's brother, Theodore Lumley, his the best of all poor George's fighting commissioner, read the will to the family associates." Baird's secretary and valet also at Stichill House after the funeral. Their travelled north, but do not appear to have nephew is Mr Adrian Lumley, of the put in an appearance. Among many Torry Fishery Research Station. Notwith- wreaths there was one from Strichen: standing his extravagances, Baird's will was another from New York representing a proved at £846,051 12s lid, though that, too, pillar of flowers surmounted by a dove. might have gone if he had lived longer. Sir George Chetwynd also sent a wreath. There were. I believe, seventy portioners, The funeral service was conducted by the and, as he knew few or none of them per- Rev. George Gunn (1851-1900). the parish sonally, Mr Abington, as Sir George Douglas minister and historian of Stichill. who remarks, had an original if somewhat spoke from the text in Philippians: "That distorted sense of humour, a comment I may know him and the power of his doubly true, if, as has been stated, Baird resurrection and the fellowship of his wired to Mrs Langtry on leaving England sufferings being made conformable unto bis "Made my will yesterday: have left death." everything to you." Sir George Douglas There were eight pall bearers, including also states that when his mother heard of his cousins. Mr J. G. A. Baird. M.P., of ihis death she remarked that she would have Muirkirk; Mr William Baird of Elie, and £30.000 a year. She did not survive him Mr E. W. D. Baird. Baird's mother did long, for she died of influenza at Brighton, not travel north from Brighton, where she where Baird as a boy had ridden his skew- lived and died. Hundreds of people bald pony, on March 5, 1895, at the age of visited the graveyard next day. which was seventy-three, her stone at Stichill being Sunday, for never had such an array of inscribed with the hope—" May she rest in wreaths been seen. Baird is commemorated peace." ner son's career must have with a stone bearing the text from Hebrews: brought anything but peace for the poor " He liveth to make intercession for them." lady. The texts on his father's memorial are: After Baird's death, the management of " We brought nothing into this world, and the estates, including Strichen. was carried " it is certain we can carry nothing out on by his trustees, Walter Lumley and (I Timothy, vi, 7), and " The Lord gave Walter Temple, and with the former's and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be brother, Theodore Lumley, as commis- the name " of the Lord (Job, i, 21). sioner, a position which he had held in Baird's HIS STRANGE lifetime, in succession to Sir WILL. tVilliam Laird, Glasgow. This arrange- Baird, then at 9 York Terrace, Regent's ment continued until the youngest child Park, made his will at Lumleys' office on of Mr Abington's first cousins reached the November 14. 1891. and added a codicil on age of twenty-one, when, after an attempt November 30. 1891. and a second codicil on to sell the lands, the management was February 7, 1893, when his address was transferred to the Midland Bank Trustee 36 Curzon Street—Sir George Chetwynd's Department. In November. 1925, after
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having been held by the Bairds for seventy honour; these of pride and luxury; these years. Strichen was sold, along with Auch- sensuality and idleness; these of indigence medden, the original Aberdeenshire cradle and obscurity: such are the revolutions of of the Bairds, to a London speculator, life." the late Mr B. C. Pairweather (died James Baird went on to say that the 1932), London, who sold the farms children of bis father, Alexander Baird, separately, and later on broke up the Bit- were "certainly born in 'indigence and four estate in the same way. Thus not obscurity' : and never did a family prac- only was no house of Baird founded in the tise with more earnestness and energy the case of Mr Abington's branch of the great virtues of 'industry and economy.' The Gartsherrie group, but Strichen ceased as reward of these virtues—nameljyi, 'riches a unified estate, and is now the geograph- and honour' has seldom, perhaps, been ical name for several separately owned — more bountifully vouchsafed by a kind farms. In this way the desire of the Gart- Providence than in their case. of sherrie Bairds to find a footing in the shire None them to the vices of 'pride with which they had long been associated condescended luxury.' " was finally defeated. and Then he goes on to add rather uneasily, one feels: "Whether future HIS UNCLE'S DOUBT. generations of the family will complete the I cannot help wondering whether his round of the philosopher's axiom remains to be seen; but that of do uncle, James Baird, from whom he in- some them may is far from herited Auchmedden, did not feel uneasy so improbable." Was James about Mr Abington. At anyrate, James thinking of young George? Or was he Irish gave expression to this sentiment in a comparing the boy's mother with his managing, grateful tribute to his masterful mother, own be-mutched mother, Jean printed in the rare history of the Bairds Moffat, the strong-faced old lady who died ten years before ? of Gartsherrie, which was privately printed Mr Abington was born Even as an old woman, she looked as if in Glasgow in 1875, when Mr Abington was she would have been quite capable of fourteen years old. James stated that, applying her stick to him, and might have thanks largely to his hard-headed mother, Jean Moffat, the whole family became been able to thrash some sense into him.
1 imbued "with the best principles and Lucidity , James Baird, a powerful old' trained in the practice of industry and fellow, did not live to see his fears con- economy." He then went on to cite a firmed, for he died in 1876, when, by a "modern philosopher's" version of the bitter irony, his estate of Auchmedden fell familiar "clogs-to-clogs" axiom. "Indig- into the hands of the boy who had ended ence and obscurity are the parents of in- bis career at Eton ignominiously just six dustry and economy : these of riches and months before his uncle passed away.
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o u!W-> |\A» Printed by Henry Munro, Ltd. Aberdeen