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THE civilian rifle club movement in
England grew out of the disasters of the first months of the
Anglo-Boer War late in 1899. The British Army suffered a
series of reverses at the hands of outnumbered civilians
unlike anything the nation had witnessed in the prior years.
One of the shocking revelations of the war was the poor
standard of marksmanship in the army compared to that of the
Boers. The Boers grew up hunting and riding; each burgher
provided his own horse and rifle when he joined his
commando. These expert game shots, partial to the
bolt-action Mauser repeater, took a heavy toll on British
troops often ordered to advance in long lines as if fighting
lightly armed tribesmen.
Two men who would later found rifle clubs
early in the movement were among the many who followed the
course of the war with great anxiety: Rudyard Kipling and
Arthur Conan Doyle.
Kipling, the poet laureate of the British
Army, was appalled to read in the papers how the regulars he
had glorified in his stories and poems were mauled
repeatedly by a handful of farmers. He tried to help on the
home front, first by a failed attempt to start a volunteer
company in the resort town of Rottingdean where he lived,
then by writing ''The Absent Minded Beggar."
The poem was critically reviled but
extremely successful in its purpose of raising money for the
wives and families of soldiers serving in South Africa.
Finally on Jan. 20, 1900, Rudyard Kipling left for Cape Town
to see the situation firsthand.
Sherlock Holmes creator Dr. Arthur Conan
Doyle had been turned down by the Middlesex Yeomanry when he
applied for a commission early in the war, but he was
subsequently offered a position on the staff of a private
field hospital due to leave for the front in the spring of
1900. In the intervening months, Conan Doyle experimented
with an idea: since the Boers often fought from trenches,
why not drop bullets on their heads via "high angle" rifle
fire? Conan Doyle made and tested a prototype high angle
sight and wrote several letters to the War Office promoting
his idea, which was rejected as impractical.
The tide of the war had already turned in
favor of the British when Conan Doyle arrived at Lord
Roberts' headquarters in the city of Bloemfontein on April
2, 1900. Kipling, who had just spent six weeks working on
the staff of the military newspaper The Bloemfontein
Friend, returned to Cape Town on April 3. Although the
two authors were mutual admirers and casual friends--Conan
Doyle had been a house guest of the Kiplings in Vermont in
1894--apparently they just missed one another in South
Africa.
Dr. Conan Doyle and the staff of the
Langman Hospital were soon swamped by a massive outbreak of
typhoid fever among the troops after the Boers cut off the
city's fresh water supply. Nevertheless, Conan Doyle found
time to go briefly into combat with the army during its
advance on the town of Brandfort. He was as impressed with
the scale of the modern battlefield and the range of the
weapons as Kipling had been when he witnessed the battle of
Karee Siding in March. At one point during the fighting,
Kipling wrote: ". . . (we) move(d) forward to the lip of a
large hollow where sheep were grazing. Some of them began to
drop and kick. 'That's both sides trying sighting shots'
said my companion. 'What range do you make it?' I asked.
'Eight hundred at the nearest. That's close quarters
nowadays. You'll never see anything closer. Modern rifles
make it impossible. ' ''
Although the Boer War offered firsthand
proof to the British that accurate rifles had changed the
nature of warfare, a tremendous enthusiasm had surrounded
the rifle since the authorization of the volunteer rifle
companies in 1859. The volunteers, a Victorian fad for
amateur soldiering, were popularized by periodic rumors of a
French ironclad battle fleet. The National Rifle Association
of Great Britain was founded in 1859 as well, to promote a
national taste for rifle shooting and thereby sustain
interest among the volunteers between invasion scares. The
association's stated aim was to make the rifle "what the bow
was in the days of the Plantagenets"--a national weapon. For
the history-conscious Victorians, the parallels between the
rifle, a weapon requiring far more skill and practice than
the smoothbore musket it replaced, and the longbow, were
irresistible.
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Queen Victoria, whose reign
stretched into the Boer War, fired the opening shot
at the British NRA's first meeting at Wimbledon on
July 1, 1860. The British NRA's birth preceded the
American NRA's by 12 years.
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"What the 'clothyard shaft and grey
goose-wing' effected, when guided by an English eye and an
English hand at Crecy and Agincourt, the rifle bullet will
do in any future contest...." wrote Hans Busk in The
Rifle and How to Use it.
The London Times went so far as to
editorialize: "The change from the old musket to the modern
rifle has acted on the very life of the nation, like the
changes from acorn to wheat and stone to iron are said to
have revolutionized the primitive races of men."
Despite the NRA's best efforts during the
previous 40 years, the war in South Africa demonstrated
clearly that England was not yet a nation of marksmen. In
May 1900 Prime Minister Lord Salisbury called for the
formation of civilian rifle clubs to redress the
shortcoming. In a speech to the Primrose League, he stated
his goal was no less than that "a rifle should be kept in
every cottage in the land." In response the NRA formulated
its guidelines for the affiliation of civilian clubs.
Ninety-two were formed that first year, among them Rudyard
Kipling's club at Rottingdean and Arthur Conan Doyle's
Undershaw Rifle Club.
Kipling had returned home to Rottingdean
convinced that the English people had grown too soft and
complacent to defend their empire. Not only had the regular
army had a difficult time with the Boers, it had compared
poorly to its colonial allies; the Australians and New
Zealanders had adapted easily to the irregular warfare of
their opponents. Kipling was then at the height of his fame
and popularity, and he was determined to use his status as a
platform for moral leadership, both through his writing, and
in the summer of 1900, by example.
The first task facing Kipling as he
started the rifle club was in many ways the most difficult:
securing space for a 1000-yd. range. On a small island
nation such space was at a premium; even the royally
supported NRA had been forced to move its annual meeting
from Wimbledon to Bisley when stray bullets began striking
the Duke of Cambridge's property. Nothing less than a
full-size range would do for Kipling, however, and in July
he was able to write to his American friend Dr. James
Conland: "... the bulk of my efforts have been in trying to
get a rifle range over these open downs. At last I think I
have succeeded and after untold bothers the landowners have
given their consent to our putting up targets and butts. It
was a weary business corresponding with lawyers and
land-agents and generally making oneself agreeable to
everyone--but now [that] we have started a village
rifle club I begin to see a reward for my
labors."
It was not the Boer War that motivated
Kipling but the continental war with Germany that he already
foresaw. He threw himself into club activities, serving as
president, personally paying for new targets to replace the
old windmill type, presenting the club with a Nordenfeldt
gun that had been used in South Africa and taking his turn
as musketry instructor, familiarizing club members with the
.303 Enfield service rifle. ". . . my real work this
summer has been connected with our new rifle range," he
wrote to Dr. Conland in December. "The men are just as keen
as can be and turn up every week to put in their firing. Can
you imagine me in corduroy clothes and a squash hat with the
Club ribbon around it in charge of a firing party of four on
the ground; an hour of standing over the rifles with one eye
on the targets and the other on the men (Some of 'em have
queer notions about shooting)."
President Kipling oversaw the
construction of a drill shed for winter training. Although
Kipling spent the winter of 1900- 01 in Cape Town, the
instructions he left behind testify to his seriousness about
the club's activities:
Instructions for the use of shed
during my absence:
Men to have two evenings a week for MT
(Morris Tube) practice and such other evenings as the
Sergeant shall see fit for
Gardner Gun Drill
Signalling
Guard Drill, etc.
Boys to have two evenings a week. One for MT practice and
one for gymnastics.
Boys evenings are not to be Monday and Wednesday.
Men and Boys evenings to be kept separate.
Men to be instructed in gym work if Sergeant thinks
fit.
Fatigue parties must be told off to clear up the shed,
every night as there will be no allowance for
caretakers.
All damage must be paid for by offender.
The Rifle Club may hold meetings and concerts in the shed
under Sergeant's supervision. No intoxicating drinks
under any circumstances.
Smoking is permitted.
Cst. Gd. Wells is to be in charge of the Gardner Gun with
right of way and free entry into shed for that
purpose.
Rudyard
Kipling
Arthur Conan Doyle drew a different
lesson from the Boer War than did Rudyard Kipling.
Recognizing the English peoples' aversion to conscription,
and opposed to compulsory service himself, Conan Doyle saw
the war as proof that civilian marksmen could effectively
resist invasion. He founded the Undershaw Rifle Club and
explained his purpose in a letter to the Glasgow Evening
News entitled ''Burghers of the Queen" in December of
1900. Conan Doyle wrote: ". . . the idea I am working with
is simply riflemen drawn from the resident civilians. The
men are quite eager to pay for their own cartridges which,
with the Morris Tube system, can be sold at three for a
penny. I made ranges for them at 50, 75 and 100 yds., the
latter representing 600 yds. without the Morris Tube system
. . . on Holidays I will give them a prize to shoot for . .
. the whole expense of targets (5), mantlets, rifles (3),
with tubes is not more than £30.''
For the pragmatically minded Conan Doyle,
the "miniature'' or .22 rimfire smallbore range seemed a
more practical solution to the problem of space than a
full-size 1000-yd. range like the one at Rottingdean. (The
Morris Tube was a barrel insert for the service rifle that
allowed it to chamber the .297/.230 short or long, a
center-fire equivalent of the .22 rimfire.)
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"Miniature Club" .22 rimfire
or .297/.230 center-fire rifles were favored by
Arthur Conan Doyle for marksmanship training
because the requirements for ranges were more
easily met than for large bores.
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Conan Doyle further proposed that all men
between the ages of 16 and 60 (not coincidentally the age
limits for Boer soldiers) should train in rifle clubs. Those
reaching a certain level of proficiency would be awarded a
distinctive broad-brimmed hat and a rifle and bandolier to
keep at home, a "uniform" remarkably like that worn by the
Boers.
When the military correspondent for the
Westminster Gazetteer criticized his ideas, Conan
Doyle responded: "I have stood all day today marking for our
own corps of civilian riflemen. Gentlemen, shopboys, cabmen,
carters and peasants were all shooting side by side. The
prize, at a range which was equivalent to 600 yds., was
taken by a top score of 83 out of 90; 82, 81 and 80 were
next. Fifty men spent their bank holiday at my butts, and
the scene was like a village competition in Switzerland.
Conceive the stupidity that would refuse military material
such as that when all it will ever ask of its country is a
rifle and a bandolier!"
By January 1901, Conan Doyle was ready to
pronounce the club a success, and he wrote to the local
paper, the Farnham, Haslemere and Hindhead Gazette: "I
hope to see similar clubs started at Headley, Churt,
Tilford, Witley, Chiddingfold and especially at Haslemere.
If any gentleman desires to organize one, and so help in
what is a very urgent public duty, I will be happy to
furnish him with full information as to the methods by which
we have brought our own success. "
At the end of that summer, Kipling also
had reason to be pleased with the results of his work. He
wrote again to Dr. Conland: ". . . the end of the season
shows we have forty very fair shots and about thirty men who
at least know something of shooting. We've won every match
so far (six in all) that we've shot against outside teams;
and some of the teams were fairly strong ones.''
Unfortunately, we have no better account
of Kipling's marksmanship other than that he shot
"adequately" despite his poor eyesight and that he scored a
bullseye at the opening ceremonies of the Winchester Drill
Hall. He was, however, a fierce competitor, shooting in all
of the club's matches, serious to the point of surliness.
When a member of the visiting Newhaven Volunteers expressed
his interest in meeting the great man at a match in
Rottingdean, Kipling snapped "Well, now you can see the
animal on his own ground."
Kipling eschewed special treatment,
insisting that everyone must "muck in together" in the
important business of preparing for war. Unfortunately his
celebrity drove him away from the resort town of Rottingdean
and the rifle club. Curious sightseers continuously invaded
his privacy, and a local tour bus line made his house one of
its most popular stops. Late in the summer of 1902, the
Kiplings moved to a house in the country. The Islanders
was published shortly thereafter. In the scathingly
sarcastic poem, Kipling made plain his scorn for the English
people he felt would rather play games than prepare for war,
and ridiculed the Duke of Wellington's notion that wars were
won on the playing fields of Eton:
Will ye pitch some
white pavillion and lustily even the odds
With nets and hoops and mallets, with rackets and bats
and rods?
Will the rabbit war with your foeman-- the red deer
horn him for hire?
Your kept cock pheasant keep you-- he is master of
many a shire
Arid, aloof, incurious, unthinking, unthanking,
gelt
Will ye loose your schools to flout them, till their
brow beat columns melt?
Kipling's proposed solution was simple and true to
form:
Each man born to the Island, broke to the matter of
war
Soberly and by custom taken and trained for the
same
Each man born to the Island entered at youth to the
game
As it were almost cricket, not to be mastered in
haste.
Although by then Kipling's hands-on work
with the rifle club movement had ended, he continued to
support any cause that he believed would promote strength
and readiness. He wrote the "Patrol Song" for Boer War hero
Baden-Powell's newly formed Boy Scouts and spoke out on
behalf of the National Service League's efforts to implement
conscription. "The Parable of Boy Jones," written by Kipling
in 1910 for The Rifleman, official organ of the
Society of Miniature Rifle Clubs, gave a detailed fictional
account of rifle club shooting indoors and out.
Arthur Conan Doyle, knighted in 1902 for
his wartime service as a doctor and two books, The Great
Anglo-Boer War and The War in South Africa: Its Cause
and Conduct, left the healthy Undershaw Rifle Club in
other hands and turned his attentions elsewhere. In 1905,
however, he was prompted to write again on the subject of
miniature rifle clubs in support of Lord Roberts, who had
become the president of the Society of Miniature Rifle
Clubs.
Writing to the London Times in
June 1905, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle presented his case, making
the inevitable comparison to the Middle Ages: "The first
point which is worth insisting upon is that a man trained at
a miniature range (whether Morris Tube or otherwise) does
become an efficient shot almost at once when he is allowed
to use a full range. What with the low trajectory and
absence of recoil in a modern rifle the handling of the
weapon is much the same in either case. I am speaking now of
an outdoor range where a man must allow for windage and
raise his sights to fire . . . It was skill at the parish
butts which made England first among military powers during
the fourteenth century. My suggestion is that the parish
butts be restored in the form of the parish miniature
range."
The renewed appeal helped to bring about
a large increase in the number of rifle clubs. By 1906 there
were 302 miniature and 307 full-range clubs affiliated with
the NRA. The government forgave the excise tax on firearms
purchased for all but sporting use, and the Conan Doyle Cup
was presented by Dr. Langman of the Langman Hospital to be
shot for with the miniature rifle at Bisley. The rifle club
movement peaked during the years 1914-18 with more than
1,900 affiliated clubs, most of them miniature
clubs.
At the beginning of the Great War, Lord
Roberts wrote in his president's message to the Society of
Miniature Rifle Clubs: "Proud as I am of rifle clubs I shall
be prouder still if, when the war is over, it can be said
they helped to win the victory we know is certain." It is
difficult to judge what effect the membership of 1,900 clubs
may have had in a war that ultimately saw 5.7 million men
serve in the army.
Before the end of the First World War,
Kipling already warned of a second war with Germany.
Although subsequent events proved Kipling right, the after
math of the "War to End All Wars" saw instead an
understandable spirit of pacifism and a corresponding drop
in rifle club activity. The government, alarmed by acts of
postwar violence and the large number of surplus weapons
brought into the country, reversed its previous course of
encouraging the private ownership of rifles and passed the
Firearms Control Act of 1920. In 1938, on the eve of the
Second World War, only 471 rifle clubs remained.
The author wishes to thank members of the
Kipling Society who were kind enough to help him with his
research.
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