Singleton, John (2)

John Singleton

1715 – 1793

'Act well your part – there all the honour lies...'

John Singleton, baptised on May 10th, 1715, was raised at Great Givendale, a hamlet in the East Riding of Yorkshire, some 3 miles from Pocklington.

His father, also called John, supported a wife and nine children on just fourpence a day.

On his death the family was dispersed and young John, then aged ten, along with other boys, began his working life in the rolling hills of Yorkshire, helping herd a flock of cattle which grazed on the bleak common known as Ross Moor in Melbourne.

For adventure, the boys would catch young horses and race them against each other.

It was from these hills that the youngster first saw the training-grounds of Mr. Wilberforce Read, some eight miles away. John had heard tales of great racehorses sweeping across the Wolds and, his imagination fired, he presented himself one morning at Read’s front door, seeking work as a stable lad.

The trainer, being in need of such a boy, engaged him on the easily understood terms of ‘board and lodging’ which, in those days, meant simply a bed among the straw and the run of the kitchen when there was anything to eat.

What neither one envisaged was the extraordinary life-long friendship which would develop between them – John Singleton was to stay with him for twenty years.

Mr. Read was not a wealthy man - he rented his Grimsthorpe farmland from the Earl of Carlisle - but he lived in a sporting neighbourhood; all villages, including his own, ran an annual fête at which horses were raced.

Read had become addicted and, selling his oxen, bought a few horses in the hope of mending his fortunes.

He was delighted to find that John was a natural on horseback: he had a fine seat and showed good judgement of pace.

Being offered plenty of rides at the fêtes, John quickly attained local fame as a jockey. One farmer for whom he had won a race gave him a ewe – consequently, a few years later, John found himself in possession of a flock of sheep.

As he grew older, he developed a keen, inquiring interest in the breeding of horses and became convinced that English horses might be greatly improved by the infusion of Arab blood. He advised Read to put one of his mares to such a horse, but the trainer could not afford this.

John immediately sold the flock of sheep, enabling Read to send one of his mares to Smiling Tom, a half-bred Arab from Hampton Court. The result of this union was a filly called Lucy.

The next year, 1736, John Singleton walked the filly to Morpeth, a distance of some125 miles, undertaking the journey with just ten shillings and playing the part of trainer, groom and jockey in the fashion of the period. The filly was to contest the Morpeth Plate.

Upon hearing of such an undertaking, fellow jockeys laughed at John for coming so far with with such a small, slender filly.

Then, from the crowd, stepped a butcher from Pocklington who, knowing how good John and Lucy were, had also made his way there to back them. Befriending the stressed young jockey, he helped him saddle up and legged him into the plate before seeking out an unsuspecting bookmaker.

Lucy won, beating a large field, and did so again at both Stockton and Sunderland, gaining much-needed money for himself and Read.

The hat-trick had drawn attention to the progressive jockey – another filly bred by him was bought by the Marquis of Rockingham who at the same time engaged John as groom and jockey for the then very decent sum of £40 a year, plus clothes. This made him the first ‘professional’ jockey.

John joined Rockingham’s stables at Newmarket in 1751. His talents as a jockey were well exploited whilst there; he won many valuable races for both the Marquis of Rockingham who now treated him more as a friend than a servant – and many of his rich and influential friends.

The most famous horse he rode for the Marquis was Bay Malton, who beat Herod, Turf and Ascham at the Newmarket First Spring Meeting of 1767. Record crowds turned out for the event and Rockingham and his friends won thousands. So pleased was the Marquis with the result that he presented John with a specially commissioned gold cup adorned by figures of horse and jockey.

John Singleton became very rich himself and was able to provide for many of his poor relations. He purchased two farms at Thixendale Malton, where he built stables and laid out gallops which he considered to be the best in the kingdom. From here were sent out the finest horses of the day and John Singleton, for this period, was looked upon as the best jockey of his time.

In November, 1769, John married Mrs Ann Jackson, the widow of the jockey Peter Jackson, the nephew of esteemed horseman Thomas Jackson.

The new Mrs Singleton excelled at cake making and was celebrated for her home-made wines.

In the course of time, John ran the entire stud, a position he held until retiring in 1774. The jockey Christopher Scaife, from Bedale, who had married Singleton’s niece, took over.

Scaife suffered a bad accident at Stamford races in 1793 when Sir William Lowther's Minion fell backwards on him, breaking several of the jockey's ribs. As a consequence, he never rode again and William Clift became the stable jockey.

An exceptionally upstanding man, John Stapleton’s motto throughout his life was ‘Act well your part: there all the honour lies’. He enjoyed a long retirement and, smartly dressed in a squire’s costume and gold-laced hat, would often be seen astride his favourite hunter, Merry Bachelor, surrounded by his many greyhounds.

Sadly, in his last years he became totally blind and crippled. He died at Ross Moor on January 24, 1793 and, in accordance with both of their wishes, was buried in the same churchyard as his deceased employer, Mr Read.

John’s widow, who survived him for a few years, was buried nearby.