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Volunteers
& The NRA
National Rifle Meeting
Royal Patronage
Competitions
The Novelty Acts
Volunteer Camp
Camp Comforts
Entertainment
Serious Aims
Common Problems
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Camp Comforts
Camp life for some
was relatively comfy; the NRA Secretary's tent included a curtained
bed, boarded floor and thick carpet amongst other comforts from home.
For the Volunteers things were somewhat less luxurious and one writing
in 1867 described the camp in less than glowing terms:
"Distance
lent enchantment to the view in the case of our tent; for although
its appearance from afar was singularly neat and inviting, yet upon
a nearer approach the neatness vanished, and gloomy thoughts of sleepless
nights disquieted the soul enamoured of nocturnal repose. The tent
had been pitched with a greater regard to uniformity with the others
than for the comfort of its occupants. A colony of misguided ants
had originally settled upon the spot now covered by it, and, having
devoured every blade of grass around the settlement, had departed
again in search of happier regions, abandoning their penetralia to
the earwig(3) and the beetle, which delightful animals were careering
in playful sportiveness all over the place. The furniture of the tent
was not luxurious; it consisted solely of two minute iron bedsteads,
suggestive of anything rather than one's ability to lie down on them.
One of these proved to be broken… …"
Then, as nowadays
at Bisley, there was a break in shooting for dinner. On the firing of
the dinner gun shooting ceased and "the soldier in the grey great-coat
who has been waving the red flag of danger now stabs the staff in the
ground and proclaims a truce. The cautious markers emerge from behind
their iron walls and enjoy the short cessation of the week's rainy season
of bullets" wrote a reporter in 1862. He continued:
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"The ladies
rise from their chairs and are gallanted to the dining tents; the
orderlies canter their horses to their own quarters; a national peace
between all belligerents is proclaimed. The diners divide into many
bands. The ladies are drafted off into the private tents, where the
effect of a ceaseless duel is kept up by the popping of champagne
corks. I and the other vagrant males betake ourselves to an enormous
bell tent, supported by a polished mast, and large enough to shelter
the whole regiment of the Blues. Round the counters, every possible
colour of rifleman is having pork-pies, frothing up stout, or clamouring
for sandwiches. Grey coats with red collars, green coats with red
collars, grey coats with black and silver lace, green coats with black
braiding, are all smitten with the same vast and insatiable hunger.
In a moment barrels are emptied, loaves severed, biscuits snapped,
and sandwiches devoured. In the large dining tent, the long tables
are crowded with volunteer officers and hungry marksmen of all ages,
classes, and degrees of title; nor do I see the least difference between
the man who has made three bulls'-eyes running and the man who has
missed twice in succession. No doubt the loser is suffering slightly
from heartburn, and would, if he dared, run his fork into the bull's-eye
man; but he eats with very creditable energy, and outwardly seems
no whit the worse."
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Tea
Time! The Camp at Wimbledon
(The Graphic, 16 July 1870)
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The commissariat
arrangements were necessarily on a large scale. From 1863 Messrs. Jennison,
of Manchester, began bringing to Wimbledon from Lancashire their entire
staff. "Their wood, their carts, their horses, their men and women
(numbering more than a hundred), their beer, meat, milk, and, in short,
everything that enters into the construction of their building, or tenants
them when constructed, comes from Lancashire."
In 1871 the NRA
opened their own catering pavilion at Wimbledon, to be let to the catering
contractors. The building was designed to be built in sections so as
to be removed at the end of the meeting and stored for re-erection in
future years. Its cost was about £4500, including plant. Each
year the building was assembled for the Wimbledon fortnight and dismantled
at the close. With the move of the NRA rifle meeting to Bisley in 1890
the Pavilion found a permanent home. By 1923 the building had, however,
reached the end of its useful life and was demolished to make way for
the current NRA Pavilion which opened in 1924.
Note:
3. The prevalence of the earwig was such that the Victoria Rifles named
their camp newspaper after it. The Earwig was first published
in 1864, as "a paper containing neither Politics, Literature, Science,
nor Art." In 1866 "The Earwig Prize", value £20,
an inkstand in silver and blue enamel representing an earwig, appeared
in the prize list. The prize was open to any purchaser of a copy of
the Earwig newspaper, on payment of a shilling for an 'Earwig'
ticket. Both the newspaper and prize disappeared in 1872.
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