of the provisional convention for settling the new constitution of the church. He died at Paris, after a very brief illness, on 20 Oct. 1869. He married, 1 Oct. 1841, Blair Belinda, daughter of Captain Gordon MacNeill, 77th regiment; he left five sons and one daughter. A portrait by Catterson Smith belongs to his eldest son, Canon Robert Walsh, D.D., rector of Donnybrook, co. Dublin.
Walsh will be best remembered as the author of a little book published anonymously in 1847, called ‘Ireland Sixty Years Ago,’ in which he drew a vivid picture of life and manners in the Ireland of the Grattan parliament. For the material for this work Walsh was much indebted to his father.
[Irish Law Times, iii. 652; private information.]
WALSH, JOHN HENRY (1810–1888), writer on sport under the pseudonym of Stonehenge, son of Benjamin Walsh, was born at Hackney, London, on 21 Oct. 1810, and educated at a private school. In 1832 he passed as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and became a fellow of the college by examination in 1844. For some time he was surgeon to the Ophthalmic Institution, and lectured on surgery and descriptive anatomy at the Aldersgate school of medicine. For several years he was in practice at Worcester, but left that city for London in 1852. He always had an intense love of sport, he rode well to hounds, kept greyhounds and entered them at coursing meetings, broke his own pointers and setters, and, what is far less common, also trained hawks. In the management of dogs he became an especial adept, and few veterinary practitioners could compare with him in the treatment of dogs' diseases. He was also fond of shooting, and, owing to the bursting of his gun, lost a portion of his left hand.
In 1853, under the pseudonym of ‘Stonehenge,’ he brought out his work on ‘The Greyhound, on the Art of Breeding, Rearing, and Training Greyhounds for public Running, their Diseases and Treatment’ (3rd ed. 1875). This treatise was based on articles he had written in ‘Bell's Life,’ and, it remains the standard text-book on the subject. Three years later, in 1856, appeared ‘Manual of British Rural Sports,’ which treats on the whole cycle of sports, and, among other things, deals with the breeding of horses in a scientific manner. Sixteen editions of this work were published up to 1886, in the later editions articles on special subjects being furnished by other writers. In 1856 he originated the ‘Coursing Calendar,’ and conducted it through fifty half-yearly volumes. About 1856 he became connected with the ‘Field,’ and at the end of 1857 accepted the editorship. He brought out ‘The Shot-Gun and Sporting Rifle, and the Dogs, Ponies, Ferrets, &c., used with them in Shooting and Trapping,’ in 1859; ‘The Dog in Health and Disease,’ 1859 (4th ed. 1887); ‘The Horse in the Stable and in the Field,’ in 1861 (13th ed. 1890); and ‘The Dogs of the British Islands’ in 1867 (3rd ed. 1886). In the two books last mentioned he also had the assistance of other writers. In 1882–4 the ‘Modern Sportsman's Gun and Rifle’ appeared, vol. i. being devoted to shot-guns, while vol. ii. treated of rifles.
His activity in conducting the ‘Field,’ with the aid of many able coadjutors, was remarkable. He soon instituted the first ‘Field’ trial of guns and rifles, which was carried out in April 1858 in the Ashburnham grounds at Chelsea adjacent to the famous Cremorne Gardens. This trial wound up the controversy as to the merits of breech-loaders and muzzle-loaders, but before the final decisions two other trials were made, one at the old Hornsey Wood Tavern in July 1859, and the third at the Lillie Arms, Brompton, in 1866. In 1875 the value of the choke-bore system received further elucidation in another trial in the All England Croquet Club grounds at Wimbledon, of which club Walsh was an active promoter. The trial extended over six weeks, the whole proceedings being carried out under the editor's personal supervision. Again, in 1878, he endeavoured to make clear what were the respective merits of Schultze and black powder, when, besides conducting the actual competition, he himself carried out numerous experiments. One of the consequences was that light pressure with Schultze was found to produce better shooting than tight ramming, while tight wads to prevent the escape of gas and the general system known as the ‘Field’ loading also resulted. Other experiments led to his invention of the ‘Field’ force gauge, which gave results more reliable than the paper pads previously in use. In 1879 another gun trial was carried out to determine the merits of 12-bores, 16-bores, and 20-bores. In 1883 he instituted the rifle trial at Putney to demonstrate the accuracy of shooting of Express rifles at the target, and to ascertain by measurement the height of the trajectives of weapons differing in bores and in the charges used therein. Subsequently Walsh organised trials to ascertain the cause of so many breakages in guns, the testing of
