Thomas Francis Dale (1848–1923) was an English army chaplain, known as an author on

fox hunting Fox hunting is an activity involving the tracking, chase and, if caught, the killing of a fox, normally a red fox, by trained foxhounds or other scent hounds. A group of unarmed followers, led by a "master of foxhounds" (or "master of hounds" ...

and

polo Polo is a stick and ball game that is played on horseback as a traditional field sport. It is one of the world's oldest known team sports, having been adopted in the Western world from the game of Chovgan (), which originated in ancient ...

Life

He was the son of the Rev. Pelham Dale and his wife Mary Francis, and was educated at Merchant Taylors' School. He matriculated at

The Queen's College, Oxford The Queen's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, England. The college was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield in honour of Philippa of Hainault, queen of England. It is distinguished by its predominantly neoclassi ...

in 1867, graduating B.A. in 1870, M.A. in 1874. Dale was rector of

Jarrow Jarrow ( or ) is a town in South Tyneside in the county of Tyne and Wear, England. Historically in County Durham, it is on the south bank of the River Tyne, about from the east coast. The 2011 census area classed Hebburn and the Boldons as ...

from 1875 to 1876, and then for two years was secretary of the Additional Curates' Society, Northern District, being a member of the

Society of the Holy Cross The Society of the Holy Cross (SSC; ) is an international Anglo-Catholicism, Anglo-Catholic society of male priests with members in the Anglican Communion and the Continuing Anglican movement, who live under a common rule of life that informs t ...

. In 1878 he became a chaplain in Bombay. Over the period 1876 to 1880, his father, an Anglican

ritualist A ritual is a repeated, structured sequence of actions or behaviors that alters the internal or external state of an individual, group, or environment, regardless of conscious understanding, emotional context, or symbolic meaning. Traditionally ...

who also joined the Society of the Holy Cross, defied liturgical restrictions imposed by the

Court of Arches The Arches Court or Court of Arches, presided over by the Dean of Arches, is an ecclesiastical court of the Church of England covering the Province of Canterbury. Its equivalent in the Province of York is the Chancery Court. It takes its name fr ...

and ended up in prison. From 1885 to 1896, Dale was on the ecclesiastical establishment of

Amritsar Amritsar, also known as Ambarsar, is the second-List of cities in Punjab, India by population, largest city in the India, Indian state of Punjab, India, Punjab, after Ludhiana. Located in the Majha region, it is a major cultural, transportatio ...

. Dale acted as manager for the

Ranelagh Club The Ranelagh Club was a polo club located at Barn Elms in south west London, England. It was founded in 1878 as a split-off from the Hurlingham Club and by 1894 was the largest polo club in the world. The club had approximately 3000 members ...

polo team; this was after 1894, when Major F. Herbert, the founder, gave up the position. He wrote on polo ponies and was a member of the Polo Pony Society. He died at Burley, Hampshire on 13 October 1923.

Works

*''Riding'' (1891), with Robert Weir and James Moray Brown. *''Game of Polo'' (1897) *''Riding and Polo Ponies'' (1899) *''The History of the Belvoir Hunt'' (1899) *''Riding, Driving and Kindred Sports'' (1899), vol. 1 of The Sports Library *''The Eighth Duke of Beaufort and the Badminton Hunt: With a Sketch of the Rise of the Somerset Family'' (1901) *''Fox-hunting in the Shires'' (1903) *''Polo Past and Present'' (1905) *''The Fox'' (1906), illustrations by Archibald Thorburn and G. Giles. *''The Stable Handbook'' (1907) *''Polo at Home and Abroad'' (1915) In '' The Field'', Dale wrote under the pseudonym "Stoneclink". He wrote a novel about a fox, ''Two Fortunes and Old Patch'' (1898), with Frances Elizabeth Slaughter, another sporting writer. In her 1907 book on dogs, she included "Bruce", who belonged to Dale, and a spaniel belonging to his sister Helen Dale.

Family

Dale married Frances Marianna Cockburn Witty (1849–1940), daughter of the solicitor Richard Henry Witty, in 1869. Their children included: *Thomas Cyril Dale (1870–1937), cleric. *Evelyn Mary Frances Dale (1873–1960) *Francis Harold Dale (1876–1940)

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dale, Thomas Francis 1848 births 1923 deaths 19th-century English Anglican priests 19th-century English writers