An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 177 The portrait on the other side shows me as I appeard during my Mayoralty. I know it hurt the finer feelings of the Town Clerk that I would not assume the frock coat and tall hat which he thought was the orthodox garb of a Mayor-not even when the King came-but I rather scored against him when I was able to point out that no less a person than Lord Derby wore precisely the garb to which I adhered! * Being now free of the city, though I was never formally made a freeman of it (though an old case has decided that a man's selection as Mayor ipso facto makes him one), I was able to go back to the country in peace, and on the 17th attended a very good enter– tainment for the benefit of Sloley Church, which was held at Horstead, and in which the parson of that place, and Dr. Wright of Coltishall, were extremely funny. The rest of the year was uneventful, broken only by a visit to London to Professor Voelcker, the well-known analyst and old athlete, to attend the annual dinner of the London Athletic Club on the 2nd December, at which Lord Alverstone (the Dick Webster of the past), himself a fine runner, was in the chair. His amusing and reiterated reference to the "admirable Mr. Puttick '' was very funny. Next day I railed to see my old sisters at Hemel Hempstead, and on the 4th strolled down to Putney look– ing at (or rather for) old haunts, and took a cab up to Roehampton to see the Annual Oxford and Cambridge Cross Country Race held over our T.H.H. Course. Inci– dentally attending were some young friends (one of Suffragist tendencies) who broke the merinJ;ue record. I went to the dinner (we gave this annually), my son, F.G.R., being in the chair, and speaking quite well. The rest of the year was uneventful. The Rev. F. Lillingstone having died, it was thought it would be a good idea to commemorate his memory by printing the history he had begun on Sall, and Mr. Woolmer Wright (Sheriff 1915) came over to see me about it, and would have paid for its printing, but on going into the matter it was found that he had literally only "begun" it, and I had to decline the enormous labour of doing it on the same * A caricature sketch of me in a pot hat appeared in "Daylight Annual" for 1909, and other caricatures in the issues for 1908, 1910, 1912, and 1913.