Every now and then, I find a subject for a story here which has only the slightest link with New Zealand - but which is too good a story not to find and tell. While covering the life of Colonel Wilmot Cave-Browne-Cave I found that of his relative, the 12th Baronet of his family. His story could have been torn from the pages of the "Boys Own Paper" of a century ago.
THE BARONET COWBOY.
ADVENTURES IN THE WILD WEST.
The real Sir Genille Cave-Browne-Cave, the celebrated "Cowboy Baronet," is homeward bound at last after thirteen years of adventure and hardship in the Wild West. A weatherbeaten, powerful deep-chested man in the prime of life, the baronet, who, by the way, is, known as "Kitty" throughout Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Colorado, visited me (says a New York press correspondent) in quest of information as to the best way of reaching London with a limited purse. He left England in 1895, when ill-fortune overtook him, and went, to Arizona, where he obtained work as a cowboy. He had been rough-rider in a British Hussar regiment, and his skill enabled him to earn money as a horse-breaker. "For the first three months," said Sir Genille, "I was thrown three or four times a day, but in time I became so expert that it was a paying business. I was paid £2 a horse, and for two months in the year I rode on an average four horses a day. When a horse has been ridden three times it is supposed to be broken. I practised and prospered, and was very soon known as one of the best steer ropers in the country. There is still plenty of lawlessness out West," he went on, "but things are vastly changed in the past ten years. I remember that in the little town of Tombstone nine years ago there was a saloon which, had an average of three barmen wounded or killed a week. The ranchers would ride in, leave their horses outside, gamble, and quarrel and shoot. As soon as anyone was injured the 'boys' would scramble for their horses, gallop to the border, stay away until the hue and cry had ceased, and then return again. Even now there is much disorder, and the Government will have its hands full before long to quell the war between the sheep and the cattle farmers. Two, years ago I was made manager of a big ranch in Arizona which had been the prey of cattle thieves for years. When the other I ranches heard I was coming they yelled with delight, thinking that the Englishman would be an easy victim. They did not know that I had become quite an expert at shooting from, the hip without drawing my revolver from the belt. I arrived, and the following day four hundred head of cattle were missing. So I rode over to the neighbouring ranch and captured 600 and branded them the same day. The owner came with an inquiry as to where I got the cattle. 'I stole them,' I answered. His hand moved to his pistol, but I was quicker than he, so he acknowledged his defeat, and we became the best of friends. I was in Colorado," continued Sir Genille with a laugh, "when the news reached me that I was 'wanted.' It made me depart hurriedly for still more distant scenes, for as a cowboy you never know what crime you may not have committed. But now," he ended with a half sigh of regret, "I suppose my nomadic days are over. I am already older than most cowboys. Few of them can stand the strain after they are thirty. I am going home now, and if the death duties payable on the family estate do not force me to starve for the next few years, I shall abandon my life of adventure and settle down in approved old-fashioned style." -Marlborough Express, 22/7/1908.
"COWBOY BARONET."
BROOKLYN CELEBRATIONS.
Sir Genille Cave Browne Cave, known generally as the cowboy baronet, publicly declared recently that he would sooner he the caretaker of the Brooklyn barracks of the Salvation Army than ride to hounds and be somebody in English county society after the manner of his forefathers. Sir Genille has no grudge against fox-hunting or county society, but, to quote his own words to "The Dally Telegraph" representative In New York: "There's no room in England for a baronet when he's without an income and his landed estate is heavily mortgaged." I suggested that the baronet's plight was equally bad in 'the United States, and he replied that since he had been "saved" he had been "rich in grace," and that "earthly treasure allured him no longer." The former cowboy looks a mighty smart, clean-cut, young Englishman to-day, and all the better for his years of probation in the Salvation Army work. He has been caretaker of the Brooklyn barracks, floor scrubber, and janitor during the week, lending a hand on Sundays, distributing hymn-hooks, and playing the bass drum. Now he has been promoted to the rank of ensign, and in honour of his elevation there are to be grand doings at the barracks shortly. Sir Genille, according to the posters on the city walls, is "leading the service of prayer and thanksgiving and experiences." It is to be "a great English night," and the former cowpuncher will be the central figure.
"Sir Genille Cave Browne Cave," says the poster, "a former man of fashion, of Stretton Hall, England, will tell what the Salvation Army can do for you." It is further mentioned that Lady Duff Gordon and "other (English aristocrats" will be present. Sir Genille, when he returned from England three years after inspecting his much-encumbered family estate, called on "The Daily Telegraph's" New York bureau and said that he intended to marry and settle down. Then he disappeared for a while, and was not found again until he joined the Salvation Army.
In his "experiences" he tells how a Salvation lass found him one day in a public drinking-'bar and invited him to the barracks.
"I was on my beam ends then," says Sir Genille, "and hadn't heard a kind word for ever so long. I went to the barracks, and proved that conversion to a Christian life satisfies the requirements of any reasonable man." -Auckland Star, 14/10/1911.
COWBOY BARONET “ROPED BY CUPID.”
MARRIES A LONDON LADY.
Sir Genille Cave-Browne-Cave, the cowboy baronet, has just married Miss Florence Boltwood, a London lady, whom he mot when he was holding a Salvation Army service at Esmont, Virginia.
The engagement is announced in the Kansas City Star, which says that Sir Genille Cave-Browne-Cave, who at one time held the title of champion roper (of steers), has now been roped and tied by Cupid.
“He and his bride,” adds the Kansas City Star, “intend to do evangelical work in the mountains among those who have come to look at pastors in the same way they do Federal revenue agents, which generally is down the barrel of a rifle.”
Sir Genille Cave-Browne-Cave is now within a few months of 48. In his crowded life he has been soldier, sailor, gold-digger, tea-planter, tiger-hunter, man about town, cowboy, author, variety artist and Salvation preacher.
Nine years ago Sir Genille Cave-Browne-Cave floated into London society from a cattle ranch in America. He had succeeded to one of the oldest baronetcies of England, had been hunted up in the Wild West, and provided with his passage money Home. The money he had squandered in New York on his journey, but, undeterred by any such little drawback, he shipped on to a cattle boat. But, used to such smells and such work, he turned up in town smiling and happy.
The new baronet found the family estate of Stretton-en-le-Field, Leicestershire. worthless, owing to heavy mortgages. He stayed long enough to write his story for readers of Lloyd’s News, and then went back to America in search of further adventure.
Sir Genille Cave-Browne-Cave has been the hero of hundreds of columns in American papers. They have lavished headlines upon him; but this easygoing, blue-eyed man has never resented it. His own story of his youth is as follows: —
"I was educated at Repton, but, being sea-struck, I went on the Worcester training ship. The idea my people had was that a voyage on a ‘windjammer’ to the antipodes would knock the nonsense out of me.
“I made several voyages in the old clipper Pakwan, and in the Oaklands, another one-time famous tea clipper. Then, for the time being, I had had enough of sailoring, so I enlisted in the Thirteenth Hussars. They thought so much of my riding that I was sent to the Canterbury Riding School to be an instructor. Volunteering for foreign service in 1887, I went to India, getting an exchange into the Twenty-first Hussars. I went through one hill campaign, and then bought my discharge."
From a cavalryman he became a goldminer in Mysore, Central India, with two or three kindred spirits. Careless whether he drew prizes or blanks, he drew prizes. Then, getting tired, not of making money, but of making it in a way to which he had grown accustomed, he left easy money-making, and came back to the Old Country.
Ever restless, the East called him, and he went to the fever-stricken hills of Upper Burma. There he was in a frontier force whose business it was to chase dacoits and prevent opium-smuggling.
Tired of that form of excitement, Sir Genille Cave-Browne-Cave turned tigerhunter — not for sport, but for money. There was a Government reward per head for tigers and leopards killed, and, in addition, the skins had a good value, in the markets of Europe and the United States. Altogether, he accounted for 20 tigers, and he didn’t kill them from the backs of elephants.
After his Burmese experiences the roving baronet went to America, where he became famous as a cow-puncher. Nobody know he was heir to a baronetcy. Nobody would have cared if he had told them. He was popular because he could beat them at their own game, and was strictly “white."
The announcement of his conversion was made six years ago. His own story is: "I got the job of acting in Wild West plays for moving pictures. I am an expert lariat-thrower, and I was earning £2 a day by steady work. I was travelling in a fast company with a rough crowd, and was going to the bad.
“One afternoon I was drinking in a saloon planning some fresh devilment, when a Salvation Army lassie entered, touched me on the shoulder, and said, ‘Are you a Christian?’ She handed me a card with the address of the Salvation Array headquarters.
“I do not know why, but her words set me thinking. I have never been a religions man, and whenever anybody asked me to go to church I always refused, saving that I did not want to listen to anybody preaching who was a bigger hypocrite than I.
‘‘But something took hold of me, and drew me to an army meeting. That night I listened, and went the next night and the next.
“On the sixth day I saw the light. I was sitting alone in my room, when God spoke to me. I saw my old self with loathing, I became a man of God.
“They tell me I was one of the most wonderful cases of conversion the Army had known. I publicly declared myself for God, and that evening I abandoned my old ways, and offered myself for Army employment.
“One of the most remarkable facts of my conversion was the disappearance of my taste for alcohol and tobacco. I was always a heavy drinker and an incessant smoker. My taste for drink left me the day I found God; but it was a week later when I abandoned nicotine for good. Now the mere odour of either makes me sick.” -Taranaki Herald, 13/6/1917.
COWBOY BARONET
'Lloyd's Sunday News' states: Our older readers will be interested to learn that Sir Genille Cave Browne Cave, who became known to them in those columns as the "Cowboy Baronet," is now a gunner in the anti-aircraft section of our artillery. He is at present at one of the Gosport forts, but has made an application, backed by his commanding officer, for a commission in the Army as chaplain. He was recently in London, and told a representative of this journal that he had every reason to believe the application would be successful. He is also endeavoring to place his financial affairs in order, and hopes after the war to settle at Stretton, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, upon what remains of the historic family estates.
Our representative learned from Sir Genille that he has for many years been ordained as a minister of the American Methodist Church, one of the chief religious organisations of the United States, where he has had curious and interesting experiences. In one of his parishes he had a poverty-and-disease-stricken people, and, although in receipt of no salary for his ministration, had to procure medicine and food for many of them by begging where he could.
"I had many more rattlesnakes in that parish than I had parishioners," he commented with a smile.
When the war broke out Sir Genille was in West Virginia, but determined at once to join the English forces. He had only recently ceased to he a member of the Reserve of Officers by age limit, but found it impossible to obtain a new commission without great delay. He enlisted in the Canadian forces, and arrived in England with a draft a short time ago. He was then corporal, but in accordance with regulations became a private again on being posted to an English brigade.
Sir Genille already carries scars of wounds received in the Burmese Dacoitry fighting, and, as readers of 'Lloyd's' will remember, has led an adventurous life since he left Repton in his school days. He is now 49 years old. and is still a bachelor, in spite of many cunning snares set for him by American lawyers, on behalf of young lady clients, who desired to link their wealth with the ancient title now held by the ex-cowboy preacher. -Evening Star, 18/1/1919.
BARONET'S VARIED CAREER.
FROM COW-PUNCHER TO RECTOR
A life of extraordinary variety was disclosed at the public examination recently of the Rev. Sir Genille Cave-Brown, Bt., rector of Londesborough, Yorkshire, whose statement of affairs disclosed unsecured liabilities of £779 11s 6d. and a deficiency of £524 odd. He attributed his failure to over-reaching his income by charitable relief and very high interest on loans by moneylenders.
Sir Genille stated that he joined the 15th Hussars in 1885 and after leaving the Army prospected in a gold-mining district in India, went in for cattle ranching in America served in the Spanish-American War, and took part in the Boxer expedition. He did mission work in America, served during the Great War and was ordained deacon in 1920 and priest in 1921. When he succeeded to his father's title in 1907, he had sell everything to pay his father's debts and he himself got nothing. When he went to Londesborough he was owing money and his debts increased. He had borrowed from moneylenders, and realised he could have done nothing worse. He had no assets beyond the income of his living of £561. Part of his furniture loaned by his cousin and the remainder belonged to his landlady. He was writing a book entitled "From Cowpuncher to Pulpit." From what his publisher told him he expected to receive from it about £400. The examination was closed. -Otaki Mail, 16/8/1926.
A PLAYER OF MANY PARTS
"From Cowboy to Pulpit." By Rev. Sir Genille Cave-Browne-Cave, Bart. London: Herbert Jenkins.
Few baronets have succeeded to their titles after such a varied cancer as Sir Genille Cave-Browne-Cave, who commenced life by running away to a circus, seeing life on the Australian goldfields, sailing twice round the world before he as sixteen, and then joining a cavalry regiment as a ranker, ending adventurous years by becoming converted, and entering the Salvation Army, from which he gradually became a missioner. The story of his life, written by himself, and published with illustrations by Herbert Jenkins, London, gives point to the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction, and, moreover, it is told well. It would take a long time to catalogue the stages of his wanderings, led by the whims of wanderlust, but they included service in the Army in India, work on the Mysore goldfields, professional snipe and duck-shooting in Burma, club life in London, a trip to Iceland, and a while in New York, before he suddenly realised that the call to him exercised by a wild west show in his boyhood days was the strongest of all, and when he settled down on a cattle ranch in the Far West, it was decreed that he should love that life best. "English," as he was called, took time to learn the use of rope and pistol, but became an adept in both. A flip round the world again, another sojourn in India, and he was back again in the United States, where he spent some years, meeting with the most, uncanonical of adventures, which he details with zest. There he witnessed, and took part in, shootings and daredevil pranks.
His father's death, and succession to the title, brought queer things in its train, for he was sought out by Yankee lawyers eager to exploit his marriageable value to his profit. Then came work in the "movies," followed by the conversion that led, in the end, to his being ordained as a Church of England minister.
Some of the most interesting and diverting incidents of this wild and varied life are described in his reminiscences of a Virginia parish, but there is a raciness and ease in the telling of the whole tale which rivets the attention. Things he does not like are spoken of frankly, and amongst these are the Mormons, while Prohibition is looked upon as a farce. Sketchy and cursory as the life history must be, in view of the immensity of the ground covered, it will appeal to those who have never roamed as keenly as it will to those who have, as humour, a frank and manly outlook, and a modesty that is not overdrawn, tinge his version of adventures that rival the "movies" for thrills. Money was never the object of his wanderings, and he has written his tale without thought of whether it will please or offend. -Evening Post, 31/12/1936.
ROVING LIFE OVER
COWBOY-PARSON DEAD
PEACE IN ARMS OF CHURCH
ADVENTUROUS CAREER (excerpt)
United Press Association — by Electric Telegraph — Copyright. "Times" Cables.
LONDON, 30th October.
The death of the Rev. Sir Genille Cave-Brown-Cave, at Londesborough Rectory, ended a roving life, which was most adventurous, a life a missionary or Bush Brother would have envied.
A casual encounter with a recruiting sergeant on Tower Hill decided Sir Genille to join the Army. He progressed famously, until, as the result of a bet, he succeeded in dismissing the Guard, dismounting the sentries, and locking up the barracks of the 13th Hussars, the regiment in which he had enlisted. After the court-martial it seemed best to volunteer for service in India.
Later he purchased his discharge, went wandering in the-Indian jungles, and bagged his first tiger. Next he tried his luck in the Mysore goldfields, accumulated some cash, ran the gauntlet of bubonic plague in Madras, took a job as second fireman on the Calcutta mail-train, and returned to London, "no longer a minor, but a .man." Then, of course, there were "rags" in the West End (a famous night was that on which he acquired a hot-potato barrow and sold the contents in irreproachable evening kit), and the squandering of his Indian nest-egg. So there was nothing but the Army again; but in six weeks he had, on second thoughts, bought himself out and sailed as A.B. on a barque to Greenland. The voyage ended at Philadelphia. Ranching naturally claimed him, and he became a cow-puncher, able to ride anything and hit anything with a sixshooter in either fist.
How he won the roping championship, how his partner wiped out eight Mormons, the methods of old-time Judges and sheriffs, and some stunts he undertook for the ''movies" are fascinatingly described. Then comes a change in the whole scheme and philosophy of the author's life. He attended some Salvation Army meetings in New York. .
"I knew that there was a hell and that I was heading straight for it." After a little, "I knew that I was a converted man, absolutely changed, re-made." Mission work in remote places followed, the charge of a parish in Virginia, evangelistic tours among the darkies till the time when the Great War brought him hurrying home, eager for service.
Age prevented anything more strenuous than a padre's existence until demobilisation at the Crystal Palace, and then ensued further evangelistic /trips at last leading to the logical conclusion of ordination. So the wanderer made his haven in a rectory, "happily married and settled down."
He was in his sixtieth year when he died, and had only been married three years. The heir is Commander Reginald Ambrose Cave-Brown-Cave RN born 1860. Of the same family are Group-Captain Henry M. Cave-Brown-Cave, youngest son of the late Sir Thomas Cave-Brown-Cave, who is in command of the Far East Flight of Flying Boats, and Wing-Commander Thomas B. Cave-Brown-Cave, eldest son of the late Sir Thomas, an authority on non-rigid airship construction who served with the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 1914-20. -Evening Post, 31/10/1929.
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