3-021-536 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Hunting Disaster in Yorkshire: general view of the Ure in flood, where the accident happened, 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.] 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...Sir Charles's horse kicked another...The boat was swayed first to one side and then to the other, and finally turned bottom upwards...the slimy bottom of the boat, rocked to and fro by the struggling of the men and horses beneath it, was all that could be seen by the spectators on the bank; then here and there...heads began to appear, only to sink again amid agonised cries; hands and arms were flung up in despair, and men were swept by the current out of the reach of those anxious to afford relief...An inquest was held...and a verdict of accidental death was returned'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.