3-021-534 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Hunting Disaster in Yorkshire: the ferry-boat on the River Ure, 1869. Scene of '...the misfortune which befell a party of gentlemen and huntsmen connected with the York and Ainsty hunt...[Sir Charles Slingsby, master of fox hounds, was drowned with five others and eight horses after thirteen men, with eleven horses, crowded into a vessel intended to accommodate only half that number.] Slingsby and...[others] made for the ferry, which is almost directly opposite Newby Hall, and signalled for the boat to be sent across. Swollen by the late rains, and to a great extent diverted from its natural channel, the river, at this point some fifty or sixty yards broad, swept along with a strong deep current. With no hesitation the master of the hounds sprang into the boat, to be piloted across by the Newby Hall gardener and his son... When the boat had got about a third of the way across the river, Sir Charles's horse kicked another...The boat was swayed first to one side and then to the other, and finally turned bottom upwards...An inquest was held at Newby Hall, and a verdict of accidental death was returned... Our View of the Ferry looks from the left bank to the right; the hunting party attempted to cross from the right bank to the left'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.