Whyte-Melville, GEORGE JOHN

Whyte-Melville, GEORGE JOHN, sporting novelist, was born in 1821 at Mount-Melville, near St Andrews, the son of a Fifeshire laird. He was educated at Eton; in 1839 entered the Coldstream Guards; retired in 1849 with the rank of major; but during the Crimean war joined the cavalry of the Turkish contingent (1855-56). From 1850 onwards he published upwards of a score of novels, four or five of them historical, but the best devoted to fox-hunting, steeplechasing, and country-house life generally. He met his death in the hunting-field, in the Vale of Aylesbury, 5th December 1878.