Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/394

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‘young Mr. Richard,’ succeeded to the command, and also, it is said, to all his grandfather's ability in the rostrum. He consolidated the business not only by his tact and firmness, but also by his intimacies with all the leaders of sport in his generation, both at home and abroad, and he was in many respects the greatest of his dynasty. He was assisted in the business by the second brother (‘Edmund II,’ d. 1851). Richard died at Dover on 22 July 1859 (a crayon portrait of him in the rostrum is in the office at Tattersall's), and was succeeded by Richard ‘the younger’ (1812–1870), under whose auspices, the old lease having expired in 1865, the buildings known as ‘the Corner’ were pulled down, and ‘Tattersall's’ removed to Knightsbridge Green (Albert Gate). George Tattersall (1792–1853), the youngest of the three sons of Edmund (I), started life as a farmer in Norfolk, but lost a good deal of money, and eventually moved to Dawley, where for some years he managed the Tattersalls' stud-farm, though he was never a partner in the business. He married Eliza Reeve of Wighton in Norfolk, and had issue a son Edmund (‘Edmund III,’ 1816–1898), who became head of the firm of Tattersall in 1870. The third Edmund, born at Sculthorpe, Norfolk, on 9 Feb. 1816, was from 1848 to 1895 an active participator in the business, and spared himself no pains to sustain the world-wide reputation of his firm. He died at Coleherne Court, South Kensington, on 5 March 1898 (Horse and Hound, 12 March 1898; Times, 7 and 9 March 1898); his eldest son, Edmund Somerville Tattersall, became the director of the business.

George Tattersall (1817–1849), the artist, best known under the pseudonym of ‘Wildrake,’ the younger son of Richard Tattersall the elder (1785–1859), by his wife, Mary Grace Robson, was born at Hyde Park Corner on 13 June 1817. He early developed talent as a draughtsman, and compiled an illustrated guide-book to the lakes when only eighteen. He entered an architect and surveyor's office, and eventually set up for himself at 52 Pall Mall, opposite Marlborough House. He built the extensive stables at Willesden, whither Messrs. Tattersall had removed their stud-farm from Dawley, and he also built largely for Serjeant Wrangham and other well-known sportsmen, embodying the results of his experience in his work on ‘Sporting Architecture.’ In 1836 he visited America, and executed a portfolio of sketches in watercolours or sepia, now in the possession of his sister, Mrs. Philpott. Some of these sketches (particularly those of Washington's tomb in its original simplicity) have an antiquarian as well as an artistic value. ‘Wildrake’ died prematurely of brain fever at his house in Cadogan Place, London, in 1849. He married, in 1837, Helen Pritchard, and had issue.

George Tattersall's small handbook of ‘The Lakes of England’ (London, 1836, 8vo) was illustrated by forty-three beautiful outline drawings by the author, ‘etched on steel’ by W. F. Topham. He published in 1841 ‘Sporting Architecture’ (London, 4to), with plates and designs of grand-stands, stables, and kennels; and in the same year, under the pseudonym ‘Wildrake,’ he edited ‘Cracks of the Day’ (London, 8vo), a set of plates, with descriptive letterpress, of sixty-five racehorses from Recovery (1830), the model for Wyatt's equestrian statue of Wellington, to Crucifix, who won the Oaks in 1840. An enlarged edition, with seventy-five engravings, appeared in 1844 as ‘Wildrake's Picture Gallery of English Racehorses,’ and a similar ‘Pictorial Gallery’ was issued posthumously in 1850. In 1843, in conjunction with Henry Alken [q. v.], he illustrated the well-known ‘Hunting Reminiscences’ of Nimrod (i.e. Charles James Apperley). Both this volume and ‘Cracks of the Day’ are greatly prized, when in a good state, on account of the steel engravings, which rank with Browne and Leech's illustrations to the sporting novels of Surtees. Scarcely inferior are some of the plates in the ‘New Sporting Almanack,’ which ‘Wildrake’ edited for 1844 and 1845. ‘Wildrake’ also contributed some excellent illustrations to ‘The Book of Sports’ (London, 1843, 4to). In addition to his pictorial work he was an active journalist, editing the ‘Sporting Magazine’ during 1844 and 1845, and being a large contributor and, for a short time, editor of the ‘Era.’

[Gent. Mag. 1795 i. 348, 1854 i. 110, 1859 ii. 315; Morning Post, 23 Feb. 1795; Memoirs of Hurstwood, 1889; Life of Col. George Hanger, 1801, ii. 144; Croston's Lancashire, iii. 389; Baily's Mag. 1 Jan. 1888; Sala's Twice round the Clock, 4 p.m.; Knight's London, vi. 353; Thornbury's Old and New London, vi. 317; Wheatley and Cunningham's London, iii. 347; Fox-Bourne's Hist. of Newspapers, i. 221; Campbell's Lives of Chief Justices, iii. 51; All the Year Round, May 1875, June 1885; Cushing's Pseudon. Literature; Lennox's Celebrities (2nd ser.); private information.]

T. S.

TATTERSALL, WILLIAM de CHAIR (1752–1829), editor of psalmodies, born in 1752, was second son of James Tattersall (d. 1784), by his first wife, Dorothy, daughter