#nobility
On May 8th 1854 the remarkable, Robert Barclay Allardice, known as “ the celebrated pedestrian“,died.
The Barclay family which founded Barclays Bank were descended from this 2nd Laird, he married Sarah Ann Allardice, a descendant of Robert II of Scotland and of the Earls of Airth, Menteith, and Strathearn. In recognition of the nobility of his wife’s family, Robert Barclay thenceforth took the surname of Allardice.
Several of the Barclay family were noted for unusual strength. The 1st Laird of Ury known as “Robert the Strong” was reputed as one of the strongest men in the country at the time of the English Civil War, and Robert’s father was himself a noted pedestrian, who once walked 510 miles from the Ury Estate in Aberdeenshire, to London in 10 days, this would have been no mean task given there were no tarmac roads back then.
Oor “Captain” Barclay’s most notable achievement was walking 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours to win a bet!!
While still at Cambridge University, Robert undertook to walk from Fenchurch street, London to Birmingham via Cambridge, a distance of 150 miles, which he covered in two days in December 1799, to visit relatives. A few days later he made the return journey via Oxford in a similar time.
Most of Barclay’s later walks, like the 1,000 mile one, were due wagers with Robert Fletcher, the “Daft Laird” His feats include, 1801 he walked 110 miles in 19 hr 27 min in a muddy park, 1802 walking 64 miles in 10 hours, and this one makes me chuckle, in 1805 he walked 72 miles between breakfast and dinner, in 1806 he walked 100 miles over “bad roads” in 19 hours and then in 1807, 78 miles on hilly roads in 14 hours.
I mentioned the wagers, and while his walks were extraordinary, he lost a lot of money to the Daft Laird and is described as throwing away good money after bad.
He is considered the father of the 19th century sport of pedestrianism, a precursor to racewalking, he was inducted into the Sport Scotland Hall of Fame in 2002
Barclay met his end on the 8th May 1854, dying of paralysis a few days after being kicked by a horse.
There is an excellent lengthy page all about Robert Barclay Allardice, “Captain Barclay”, his family and of course his wagers on the link below, however the date of death on this article is given as May 1st, rather than the 8th as on wiki.
http://donaldpfox.blogspot.com/2018/10/robert-barclay-allardice-captain.html
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The problem of a new anti-intellectualist, ascetic and heroic aristocracy, almost feudal or barbaric in its hardness and in its refusal to attenuate its forms – an aristocracy which is not improvised, but which legitimates itself with a tradition and with a ‘race’ – is fundamental. By it alone can bourgeois civilization be overcome, not with newspaper articles, but with deeds; by it alone can we arrive at a qualitative articulation of the State beyond totalitarianism….this problem is every bit as fundamental as it is arduous to resolve. To what extent can we seek a reawakening and a reintegration of those qualities which have become latent or degenerate in the surviving nobility? To what extent will it be necessary instead to ‘begin anew’, to force ourselves to create the germs of a new nobility – one not defined by individual merits or abilities of the secular and bourgeois sort, but by a superior formation of life, which his to be jealously transmitted to a future posterity?
Julius Evola from The Meaning of Aristocracy for the Anti-Bourgeois Front.
[image: Orson Welles as Macbeth 1948]
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THE MOTHER
Cayetana Fitz-James-Stuart y Silva, Duchess of Alba; and Eugenia Martínez de Irujo y Fitz-James-Stuart, later Duchess of Montoro
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THE MARQUESS
Fernando de Nava-Grimón y del Hoyo, Marquess of Villanueva del Prado (1833-1901)
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Portrait of Luís Augusto Ferreira de Almeida, 1st Count of Carvalhido (1817–1900) — Pierre Jean Edmond Castan, 1873 (National Museum of Ancient Art)
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Illuminated portrait of diplomat D. Luís da Cunha (1662–1749) — Unknown artist, 1715 (National Library of Portugal)
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Portrait of Manuel José Leite Ribeiro e Silva, 1st Baron of Urgeira (1817–1883) — Unknown artist, 19th century (private collection)
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Portrait photograph of Jacinto Fernandes Gil, 1st Viscount of Porto Formoso (1823–1892) — Alexandre Ken, 19th century (Instituto Cultural de Ponta Delgada)
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Portrait of Augusto Carlos de Saldanha Oliveira e Daun, 1st Count of Almoster (1821–1845) — Unidentified artist, 19th century (private collection)
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Portrait of Alexandre de Sousa Holstein, Count of Sanfrè (1751–1803) — Unidentified artist, 18th century (private collection)
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Portrait of Martim Velho Barreto (1610–1669) — Unknown artist, 17th century (Palace of the Dukes of Braganza)
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Portrait of João José Xavier de Sá Machado, 1st Count of Carvalhal (1778–1837) — Domenico Pellegrini, 1800 (National Museum of Ancient Art)
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Portrait of Eugénia Nunes Viseu, 1st Viscountess of São Caetano (1847–1888) — José de Almeida e Silva, 1911 (Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Viseu)
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