The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) | Page 5

as a special pleader.
They next set before me, as a terrible warning, my uncle, another
brother of my father's, who had gone to the Bar, and I will not say
never had any practice, for I believe he practised a good deal on the
Norfolk Broads, and once had a brief at sessions concerning the
irremovability of a pauper, which he conducted much to the satisfaction
of the pauper, although I believe the solicitor never gave him another
brief.
However, our family trio could not go on for ever quarrelling, and at
last they made a compromise with me, much to my satisfaction. My
father undertook to allow me a hundred a year for five years, and after
that time it was to cease automatically, whether I sank or swam, with
this solemn proviso, however, for the soothing of his conscience: that if
I sank my fate was to be upon my own head! I agreed also to that part of
the business, and accepting the terms, started for London.

CHAPTER II.
IN MY UNCLE'S OFFICE.
I ought to mention, in speaking of my ancestors, that I had a very
worthy godfather who was half-brother to my father. He was connected
with a family of great respectability at Royston, in Cambridgeshire, and
inherited from them a moderate-sized landed estate. A portion of this
property was a little farm situate at Brampton, in Huntingdonshire,
from which village I took the title I now enjoy.
The farm was left, however, to my aunt for life, who lived to a good old

age, as most life-tenants do whom you expect to succeed, and I got
nothing until it was of no use to me. When I came into possession I was
making a very fair income at the Bar, and the probability is my aunt did
me, unconsciously, the greatest kindness she could in keeping me out
of it so long.
So much for my ancestors. About the rest of them I know nothing,
except an anecdote or two.
There was one more event in my boyhood which I will mention,
because it is historic. I assisted my father, on my little pony, in
proclaiming William IV. on his accession to the throne, and I mention
it with the more pride because, having been created a Peer of the Realm
by her late gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, I was qualified to assist as
a member of the Privy Council at the accession of his present most
gracious Majesty, and had the honour to hear him announce himself as
King Edward of England by the title of Edward the Seventh!
Arrived in London, full of good advice and abundance of warnings as
to the fate that awaited me, I entered as a pupil the chambers of a
famous special pleader of that time, whose name was Frederick
Thompson. This was in the year 1841.
I have the right to say I worked very hard there for several months, and
studied with all my might; nor was the study distasteful. I was learning
something which would be useful to me in after-life. Moreover, being
endowed with pluck and energy, I wanted to show that my uncles--for
the godfather warned me as well--and my father were false prophets.
So I gave myself up entirely to the acquisition of knowledge, this being
absolutely necessary if I was to make anything of my future career.
"Sink or swim," my father said, was the alternative, so I was resolved
to keep my head above water if possible.
After being at Thompson's my allotted period, I next went to Mr.
George Butt, a very able and learned man, who afterwards became a
Queen's Counsel, but never an advocate. I acquired while with him a
good deal of knowledge that was invaluable, became his favourite pupil,
and was in due course entrusted with papers of great responsibility, so

that in time it came to pass that Mr. Butt would send off my opinions
without any correction.
These are small things to talk of now, but they were great then, and the
foundation of what, to me, were great things to come, although I little
suspected any of them at that time; and as I look back over that long
stretch of years, I have the satisfaction of feeling that I did not enter
upon my precarious career without doing my utmost to fit myself for it.
In those early days of the century prize-fights were very common in
England. The noble art of self-defence was patronized by the greatest in
the land. Society loved a prize-fight, and always went to see it, as
Society went to any other fashionable function. Magistrates went, and
even clerical members of that august body. As magistrates it may have
been their duty to discountenance, but