TheHanstead Stud was abreeding farm in England forArabian horses. It was active from 1928 to 1957, and its animals had a significant impact in many countries, "second only in importance to"Crabbet Arabian Stud.[1] It was based atHanstead Park, acountry house estate nearSt Albans inHertfordshire, not far from London.
The business was started and run by a mother and daughter.Annie Henrietta Yule (1874-1950) came from a prosperous Anglo-Indian merchant family; in 1900 shemarried her cousin SirDavid Yule (1858-1928), who had come out from Britain to join the family business in Calcutta. They had one child, Gladys Meryl (1903-1957). In 1925, they commissioned a new family home, Hanstead House, where Lady Yule and her daughter lived for the rest of their lives. Sir David died in 1928, leaving his widow and daughter extremely wealthy women; The New York Times reported that Gladys inherited $100 000 000,[2] equivalent to $1.6 billion in 2022 money.[3]
The women bred livestock (Aberdeen Angus andJersey cattle) and horses, includingSuffolk Punches (largedraught horses, still used to work the land, until tractors became widespread) andThoroughbreds (a breed used forfox hunting as well asflat racing andsteeplechases). In 1925 they expanded their interests to the breeding ofArabian horses. That summer the pair visitedCrabbet Arabian Stud, whose founders, husband and wife teamWilfrid Scawen Blunt andLady Anne Blunt, had introduced the breed to England in 1878. (They too had a daughter as their only child,Judith Blunt-Lytton, usually known as Lady Wentworth.) This visit began a long relationship of buying and leasing horses; sometimes the studs were adversaries and sometimes partners.[4]
A 1997 article on "Hanstead Horses" begins with this overview:
A third stud, Courtlands, was also held up to be of the same level, and the three competed against each other at annual shows such as the one at theRoehampton Club.[6]
International trade before and after World War II meant that the Hanstead horses were appreciated in countries such as the United States,[7] South Africa,[8] Australia, the Netherlands, and Canada.[9] "In the post-war years Hanstead was a mature stud, with a band of 10 to 15 mares and a battery of homebred stallions.[9]"
Gladys took formal control of the stud in 1946; Annie Henrietta died in 1950, leaving her £9 million.[10] Gladys "served as president of the Arab Horse Society in 1949. She was also chairman of the Ponies of Britain Club, helping to preserveBritain’s native pony breeds.[9]" By the time of her death at the age of 57, she was considered the best horsewoman in Britain, according toRichard Davenport-Hines in theOxford Dictionary of National Biography. She never married, having been "fortune hunted" by a thousand suitors,[11] but for the last years of her life she shared Hanstead House with her colleague and friend Patricia Wolf. Wolf, born circa 1914, had served during the War in theAuxiliary Territorial Service, the women's branch of the British Army. She joined the stud in 1952 as astable girl, the bottom rung of the ladder, but "was quickly promoted to head groom, then stud manager, and finally,companion-secretary".[10]
Gladys Yule died within a few weeks of Lady Wentworth, who had inherited Crabbet from her parents and had run it for 40 years. The deaths of these two only children, at a time ofhigh post-war inheritance tax, meant that in 1957 a substantial number of British-bred Arabian horses left the country, improving the breed's bloodlines elsewhere. About a dozen from each stud went toBazy Tankersley’s Al-Marah Arabians in the United States. Patricia Wolf was bequeathed options on some of the horses, which she took up. She was also given £100 000 and all the pets.[12]
Following the death of Gladys Yule in 1957, not only was the bloodstock dispersed, but the landed property was put up for sale. Hanstead Park remained on the market for a couple of years, as manycountry houses were being demolished at this time. Eventually it was sold to an American evangelist and was used as a college; when this closed, the estate became a corporate training centre. In 2011 the property again changed hands, this timeto be developed as housing;[13] the 1920s mansion has beenconverted to apartments[14] There are still commercial stables operating from Hanstead, though as alivery yard andriding school rather than as a stud.[15]
Three publications: written for the Namibia Arab Registry Newsletter, April 2001. Published in The Arabian Magazine, June 2010. Republished The Egyptian/Black Edition, May 2013.
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