William Nunneley, master of foxhounds who became head of stewarding across British racecourses

Yahoo

05-06-2025

William Nunneley, who has died aged 77, was a master and huntsman of five packs of foxhounds before rising through the ranks of racing to become the British Horseracing Authority's head of stewarding.
His foxhunting career began with mastership of the Tedworth Hunt in 1968 but he is best remembered for the fine sport shown during the 1970s while he was Master of the Morpeth in Northumberland.
He was endowed with a great sense of humour, a zest for life, and the mythical common touch, and hunting in his company was always fun. In retirement he became a confidant and mentor to young masters navigating the current choppy waters.
Nunneley's long career as a racing official, from part-time judge in 1980 to head of stewarding between 2002 and 2013, also spanned an era of unprecedented change during which the centuries-old Jockey Club ceded governance of racing to the British Horseracing Authority.
As head of stewarding, responsible for the practical management of race days, Nunneley was a fixture at every high-profile meeting in the country, from Royal Ascot in June to the Cheltenham Festival in March. He appointed two former jockeys as his deputies, and with their help the transition was made from a system reliant on amateur stewards to professional stipendiaries with a vote on the panel.
The rejection of long-standing volunteers inevitably ruffled feathers, but the changes were driven through by a man unafraid to speak his mind. Nunneley preferred a quiet word in an offender's ear to the formality of an official inquiry but there were occasions when the subtle approach would not suffice.
In 2011 the French jockey Christophe Soumillon contravened rules introduced a week earlier when he struck his mount once more than permitted during a thrilling finish to the Champion Stakes at Ascot. The stewards were reluctant to implement the forfeiture of his £52,000 prize money but Nunneley insisted on playing by the book, observing: 'The rules have to be obeyed, but if we don't agree they must be changed.' They quickly were.
William Nunneley was born on March 23 1948, the second of three children and the only son of sporting parents. His father, Major David Nunneley, was a Gordon Highlander who was captured in Singapore and sent to work on the notorious Siam-Burma railway, an experience from which he never fully recovered.
After the war he married Rosemary Whitbread, a keen hunting lady and one-time secretary of the Cotswold Hunt whose grandfather was the sporting artist, Basil Nightingale.
William enjoyed a rural upbringing in Gloucestershire, where he helped out at the Cotswold Hunt kennels under the watchful eye of Sir Hugh Arbuthnot, Master of Foxhounds, and broadened his hunting education by whipping-in to Bryan Day with the New Forest beagles.
On his return from a working holiday in Zimbabwe, the 20-year-old William announced his intention to take a pack of hounds, somewhat to the dismay of his father, who had anticipated a military career. Masterships of the Tedworth and Morpeth, where he met his first wife, Fiona Grant, were followed by shorter stays with the Bedale and Middleton in North Yorkshire, where the subscribers did not always appreciate their master's patient approach to hunting hounds.
On giving up his mastership of the Bramham Moor in 1990, Nunneley married the equine artist and sculptor Caroline Wallace, who was to nurse him through ill-health during the last six months of his life.
His Jockey Club appointment as a part-time judge in 1980 was followed by promotion to steward's secretary in 1985 with responsibility for dispensing professional advice to the local amateur stewards who attended every race meeting. His piercing blue eyes, upright bearing and old-school aura led many to assume – wrongly – that this straight-talking official had been recruited from the same military background as many of his colleagues. But beneath the steely exterior lurked a wicked sense of humour.
Always a stickler for high standards, he once hauled a recalcitrant and scruffy steward from his West Country farm to Jermyn Street to purchase a respectable off-the-peg tweed suit. The farmer's suit garnered widespread approval but was the source of much hilarity when Nunneley visited years later to find that it had been requisitioned as a bed for his host's gun dogs.
In 2002 Nunneley was elevated to senior stipendiary steward, a role that was redefined by the British Horseracing Authority to head of stewarding in 2008, a year after the BHA had assumed full responsibility for the governance of racing.
After retirement the Nunneleys spent eight years at With​ypool on Exmoor, where they dispensed hospitality to visitors from near and far and William enjoyed following the Devon and Somerset staghounds.
Latterly they returned to the county of his childhood, where it was open house to all-comers and a favourite pit stop for the North Cotswold hunt staff on summer hound exercise. A neighbour visiting shortly before Nunneley's death recalled his anxiety lest her glass run dry, and reported that his brilliant sense of humour stayed with him until the end.
William Nunneley is survived by his second wife Caroline, by a son, a stepson and a stepdaughter from that marriage, and by a son and two daughters from his first marriage.
William Nunneley, born March 23 1948, died April 23 2025​
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