The Hunt Staff Benefit Society
The Hunt Staff Benefit Society was founded in 1872 under the name of 'The Hunt Servants' Benefit Society' and continues today.
If you have hunt buttons you no longer require and would like to pass them on to the Hunt Button, we will make a donation of the normal purchase price to the Hunt Staff benefit Society.
'If you go hunting, you should consider supporting the HSBS, for the benefit of hunt staff, by becoming an Honorary Member, and supporting the HSBS's fund raising activities. ' Quote from the HSBS website
Below is an article written in the Ladies' Field Magazine in 1920 in support of the Society. The words may be different but the work of the Society remains true today.
The Hunt Servants' Benefit Society.
There is an appeal for that excellent institution, the Hunt Servants' Benefit Society. This has an especial claim on The Ladies' Field, since one of the founders of the society was a woman - Lady Theodora Guest, the wife of the Master of the Blackmore Vale. There is no class of men who have deserved better of their country or of their profession than our hunt servants. Those who were able went to the War: the older men sent their sons and did their utmost to keep hunting going. Some huntsmen of note willingly served as whippers-in and it is not too much to say that but for our hunt servants and their loyalty and self-sacrifice, hunting would not be in the position it is today. We have a debt of gratitude to pay, and the least we can do is to help by substantially supporting this admirable and well managed society by subscriptions and also by persuading the men whom we can influence to become benefit members. Taken from The Ladies' Field Magazine April 3rd 1920.
