Just how good were they?

Yes they shot big bags, but were the great Shots really that good? Records suggest that they were.

The obituary of the great Shots appeared in The Field on November 14, 1936: “The day of the great Shots is over, or at any rate, of the great “professional” Shots is over. No longer is it possible except for the very favoured few to pass the time from the beginning of August to the New Year in one country house after another, from moor to moor, from manor to manor”.

For more than a century from the days of Lord Malmesbury and Col. Peter Hawker there had been a bounty of game shooting the likes of which will never be seen again. There were grouse, pheasants and partridges in huge numbers, so just how good were the great Shots, those who enjoyed the benefit of having the wherewithal to sustain a total commitment to their indulgence for the duration of the shooting season and beyond?

We have all read of the scale of bags shot, with the larger estates undoubtedly competing with one another for bigger, better, more.

Yes, the bags were big but were the volumes of birds presented so great that surely even an average Shot could weigh in with the kind of numbers that would now be impossible? Also it might be said that if any of us were able to fire off 20,000 cartridges per season then we too might get the hang of it. But there is no certainty that this would be the case and in any event the quality and consistency of ammunition of those days would be nothing like as good as now.

The bald facts would suggest that there were indeed some brilliant Shots. The following from Sir Hugh S. Gladstone’s Record Bags and Shooting Records are just some of the remarkable achievements from the socalled golden age of shooting. Another interesting aside is the apparent lack of embarrassment at counting shots or letting records become public property. It is almost certain that this wasn’t meant to be boastful. It was just the way of things these were very different times.

Going back beyond the golden age to the early 19th century the likes of Lord Malmesbury were setting a standard for what was to follow yet for some reason he doesn’t today enjoy the profile of one or two others of that era. However over 40 seasons ending in 1840 he fired 54,987 shots for 38,934 head of game (averaging over 70%).

Col. Peter Hawker is the most quoted of this generation. Sir Ralph Payne Gallwey wrote of him in 1893: “The Colonel was a marvellous shot there can be no doubt whatever, and in the style of game shooting he pursued has probably no equal these days; as a snipe Shot he has never been, and perhaps never will be, equalled fourteen to fifteen snipe without a miss in as many single shots, and with a flint gun, speaks volumes as to his skill.

“Col. Hawker once killed 77 partridges out of 78 and his keenness can certainly never be surpassed. He scarcely ever missed and his diary shows that he was seriously vexed when his bird cost him more than one shot. On more than one occasion, when out partridge shooting, he brought home more than shots fired, thanks to his having brought off doubles or cannons as he referred them.”

How he would have fared on driven shooting with the Edwardian big Shots is anyone’s guess, but we can only assume that he would have felt very comfortable in a line of guns which also featured the likes of the Maharajah Prince Duleep Singh or Lord Walsingham.

Duleep Singh of Elveden was a prodigious Shot who was a member of the team which broke the partridge record on the Warham beat at Holkham in November 1905 when the bag comprised 1,671 partridges, 10 pheasants, 26 hares, 2 rabbits and 4 golden plover. Almost 30 years earlier he had shot 780 partridges to his own gun a Elveden, for just 1,000 cartridges. He shot 440 grouse to his own gun in August 1871 and he was in the team which shot the Grange, Hampshire in November 1897, over three days bagging 3,533 partridges. There’s no question, he was a seriously good Shot.

It was on the Warham beat at Holkham where J.W.Coke in October 1797 shot 80 partridge for 93 shots back in October 1797 an extraordinary feat for the time, indeed for any time.Lord Walsingham is of course most famous for his record for the number of grouse shot in one day by one Gun, shooting a staggering 1070 at Blubberhouses on August 30, 1888. In doing so he fired 1550 cartridges, including 40 signal shots not fired at birds. The test of stamina alone was sufficient to affect performance, so his hit ratio wasexceptional.

Bit it wasn'y just early season grouse at which he excelled. High pheasants were also to his liking and there is a report from 1887 referring to himself and the Marquess of Ripon as the two best marksmen in England standing sidebyside in a deep hollow between wooded hills at Studley, Yorkshire. “The pheasants were crossing high over their heads as they were driven from a distance by the beaters. Each gun took by mutual agreement alternate birds, to their right and left, as they chanced to come. They killed and picked up 98 between them, two birds alone escaping, one to either gun, each shooter having fired exactly 50 shots.”

On another occasion they were again pegged next to one another, but this time in Norfolk at the end of a covert. Instead of the expected pheasants a covey of eight partridge swept overhead, and seeing the Guns scattered in all directions. One quickly shot a brace out front, and with his second gun another brace. His companion succeeded in performing the same feat, and so the entire covey was brought down. Moreover they were picked on the spot.

There are numerous recordings of impressive kills to cartridges ratios from those on the circuit before the 1914-18 war. The Earl of Southesk was certainly a hugely accomplished shot. He shot 48 grouse for 48 shots (he missed once, but killed two with another shot) in one drive, shot 63 partridges for 63 shots, and on different occasions at one stand he shot 79 pheasants for 79 cartridges, 98 for 101, 103 for 107 (in seven minutes) and 228 for 238 (in 17 minutes).

J.J.Roddan shot 40 grouse for as many cartridges at Burnhope in 1872, Capt. F. Chapman shot 40 driven grouse for 41 cartridges, and Lord Savile on two drives at Walshaw Moor, Yorkshire, in two drives killed 35 and 169 grouse for 243 cartridges.

Flying the flag for the girls was the Duchess of Bedford who between the wars was a very impressive Shot. Her best at grouse was 67 for 96 cartridges and on January 31 1923, shooting with one gun, a 16 bore, at Woburn she killed 273 ‘remarkably tall’ pheasants for 366 cartridges, and on another occasion she shot 84 pheasants, at one stand, for 94 cartridges.

While this was undoubtedly a golden age free from political correctness, there are today a number of outstanding shots who would fit comfortably amongst their famous forebears. In fact there is a handful whose shooting programmes, if not scale of bags, compares well.

The last truly great Shot however was almost certainly Sir Joseph Nickerson, a man who recommended 100 days per season, broke the long standing partridge record (spectacularly) and in 24 seasons at the end of his life he shot greater numbers than even the Lord Ripon over a comparable period averaging 7,841 per season (compared to Ripon’s 7,823). For the last three of these seasons he shot a 28 bore overunder, the prior 14 a 20 bore overunder.

But take heart they weren’t all hot Shots. Badminton Magazine of 1918, a leading authority at the time, said that a man might consider himself a good Shot who killed 40% of the birds he fired at, and Lord Walsingham intriguingly went further in reducing this to 30%. Indeed judging from typical game books of the time, these assessments in many cases were very generous. Though of course certainly not in his own case.But the final thought must go to Lord Ripon, who at Sandringham once killed 28 pheasants in a minute and another occasion had seven birds dead in the air at once. He was clearly exceptional. Truly, a great Shot.

Out with a bang

Aged 71 the Marquess of Ripon was shooting on Dallowgill Moor near Ripon on September 22, 1923 and killed 165 grouse and one snipe. At 3.15pm after a drive in which he had killed 51 grouse, he dropped dead in the heather. His game books show that he had shot 556,813 head of game in his lifetime. Capt. Horatio Ross killed 82 grouse in 82 shots on his 82nd birthday.

 
 
 

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