Lord Henry Bentinck’s chestnut hunter Firebird and Policy, a foxhound, in a loose box

Lord Henry Bentinck (1804-1870) was widely hailed as one of the most expert huntsmen of his age, apparently riding to hounds six days a week and often covering great distances. The master of the Rufford hunt in his native Nottinghamshire between 1834 and 1836, and later of Burton in Lincolnshire between 1842 and 1860, he assembled a famous pack, regarded as ‘the best working…in England’ (R. Longrigg, The History of Foxhunting, London, 1975, p. 94). Bentinck even penned a treatise on Foxhounds and their Handling in the Field, which was published posthumously in 1922. The present work demonstrates his two prevailing passions: hunting and hounds. Ferneley was a fashionable choice for immortalising prized animals amongst the landed classes of the early nineteenth century. Policy, the foxhound depicted here, was an important breeding dog for Bentinck, with some ‘wonderfully fine young dog-hounds’ recorded as his offspring (‘Cecil’, ‘Cubhunting’, The New Sporting Review, XXXIV, p. 339).