Wimbledon & the Volunteers

David Minshall ©2005

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:

"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."

Tea Time!
The Camp at Wimbledon
(The Graphic, 16 July 1870)

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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