Lady Meux’s Elephant Protest
Valerie Meux never did anything by halves — not in London, not at Theobald’s Park, and certainly not in Dauntsey, Wiltshire. So when she found herself in a dispute with the Duke of Beaufort’s Hounds, she responded in a way only Lady Meux could: with spectacle, strategy, and an elephant.
The quarrel began when the Beaufort Hunt wished to ride across Meux-owned land to pursue foxes. Valerie objected. The hunt would disturb her birds, and — more importantly — she was not a woman who tolerated trespass lightly. What followed is one of the most extraordinary episodes in Victorian country life.
A friend of Valerie, Frederick Heyworth Cripps (later 3rd Baron Parmoor) recalled the moment with relish: “So, to get her own back, she went to a meet of the Hounds sitting in a howdah on an elephant. She well knew that horses have a phobia of elephants. These were no exception: the hunt broke up in confusion.”
A howdah, of course, is a canopied seat for riding atop an elephant — not the sort of thing one expects to see in Wiltshire, England, on a crisp hunting morning.
According to researcher June Badeni, Valerie had first attempted a more conventional protest. When the Hunt ignored her, she escalated. The elephant did exactly what she intended: horses bolted, riders scattered, and Mrs Meux — in her own theatrical way — made her point unmistakably.
The story sounds unbelievable. It requires Valerie to have access to an elephant, to know how to ride one, and to understand the effect elephants have on horses. Yet none of this was a problem for her. An elephant was already kept at Theobald’s Park, and rumours persisted that Valerie had once been a circus rider. If true, she may well have learned her skills not on horses, but on elephants.
Most remarkably, the tale is . The Beaufort Hunt itself has confirmed it. During the Covid‑19 lockdown, the Hunt ran a series of quizzes — and the 'Lady Meux Elephant Incident' featured proudly among them. The episode even led to a friendship between the then Duke of Beaufort and Henry Meux, who joined the Hunt in 1880.
It is a story that captures Valerie perfectly: bold, mischievous, theatrical, and entirely unwilling to be ignored.
Sources:
Cripps, F. H., Colonel The Hon. Life’s a Gamble, Odhams Press Limited, London, 1957.
Badeni, June, Countess, Wiltshire Forefathers, Redwood Burn, Trowbridge, 1981.
Members of the Beaufort Hunt: Past and Present, Standard Printing Works, Cirecncester.
Email to author from Duke of Beaufort’s Hunt, 1st June 2020.
Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser, Saturday, 31 January 1885.
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