Jack Hosegood
Exceptional horseman and MFH who was a popular figure in Exmoor and known as ‘JBH’
JACK HOSEGOOD, known to many as “JBH”, who has died aged 92, was a highly regarded Exmoor auctioneer, farmer and master of foxhounds of three West Country packs who, for four seasons, shared the horn with the renowned Captain RE Wallace as a joint master of the Exmoor foxhounds.
Tall, charismatic and with a fine war record, he was much respected by those who encountered him in the auction rooms and small moorland cattle markets or on the hunting field, where he was an accomplished horseman, huntsman and, latterly, field master with the Devon & Somerset staghounds. “He was born of an immaculate hunting family, his father, mother and grandfather had been either master or huntsman of the Minehead harriers,” Robin Rhoderick-jones recalled of Hosegood in his official biography of Ronnie Wallace.
The families’ combined masterships, which included the Blighs on Hosegood’s mother’s side, and his own 19 seasons at the Exmoor, stretched from 1899 to 1981 with barely a break.
Jack Bligh Hosegood, also known as “Mr Jack”, was born in Minehead on February 21 1925, the elder of two sons, and educated at Sherborne. In 1943 he was awarded the Medal of Honour at Mons barracks in Aldershot and commissioned as 2nd lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion of the Grenadier Guards. He took part in the final battle for Monte Cassino in May 1944, for which he was mentioned in despatches.
Demobbed in the rank of captain in 1946, Hosegood returned to Exmoor to join the family auctioneering firm of Risdon, Hosegood and Morle, under the tutelage of his father Stanley, who did not pay him for his first year. At this time he married Pam Lea-smith and played cricket for the Somerset 2nd X1. When Hosegood attempted one evening to employ his fast bowling skills in a skittles match at the Foresters Arms in Dunster, he was banned.
But hunting was Hosegood’s lifelong passion, for which his friendship as an auctioneer with the Exmoor farmers stood him in good stead. No country was closed to him as he hunted the Minehead Harriers (1949-56), Exmoor foxhounds (1956-61 and 1964-81) and the West Somerset Vale (1961-64). Felicita Busby, joint master of the Exmoor foxhounds since 1992, reckoned: “It would not be an exaggeration to say Jack was the life and soul of Exmoor, glamorous, dashing and with magnetic popularity.”
He encouraged many people to come and hunt and live on Exmoor who remember him with gratitude. “Moorland hunting is not a fringe activity,” Michael Clayton, for 25 years the editor of Horse & Hound, has observed. “Cantering on the heather can swiftly become an arduous ride in the teeth of gales sweeping in from the Atlantic.”
Hunting with Hosegood at the Exmoor in the late 1970s, Clayton recalled the feathering and surge of the hounds being handled by their experienced huntsman. “Hosegood, an excellent horseman and huntsman, made crossing the moors at speed look easy.”
In 1980, Hosegood married Anne Chanter, and from then on his interests lay with the staghounds. He forgot that he had called them “Goat Hounds” and the stags “Hat Racks” during his years as a foxhound master. He had a fondness for bagpipes and bullfighting which would reveal the softer side of his sometimes brusque manner. Having hung up his boots in 1987, Hosegood would continue to host generous meets for the foxhounds and staghounds. Not for nothing was the village hall in Exford also known affectionately as The Hosegood Arms, as was the well stocked boot of his car.
Years in the saddle on Exmoor took their toll, and Hosegood’s later years were spent at Oak Tree Court nursing home in Wellington, from which he would occasionally go on day trips to racing stables.