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The Wimbledon Rifle-Match

Chambers's Journal, 4 August 1860

SPECIAL trains had been running from Waterloo to Wimbledon throughout the 'rifle-week,' as fast as passengers accumulated at the station. On Saturday, when the Queen's Prize was contended for, when what has been called the examination for double-first in rifle-shooting came on, crowds filled the carriages as fast as they could be got ready. We went down in the morning. Volunteers in all shades of uniform, with rifles, and pouches well stored with ammunition, were waiting on the platform, and took the train by assault as soon as it was formed. I sat opposite a gentleman in braid, with a long Enfield, and very positive opinions about the match. The carriage was full. We talked butts and projectiles all the way down. Wimbledon Station was reached in about a quarter of an hour, and we found an irregular stand of cabs waiting to take us to the common. 'Here you are, sir; Hansom! half-a-crown; two shillings.' 'Bus! plenty of room inside; shilling each.' We went by the bus. It bristled with arms, and was double loaded outside; the volunteers sitting with their legs dangling down like those of mutes on a return-hearse. There was quite a study of pendent boots from the window at which I sat. In about a mile and a half, we were set down out-side a fence like a hoarding round a half-built house. Passing through the entrance, where we paid one shilling, we found ourselves on the common - a wide heath, with patches of furze, and a fringe of tents. The eye took in the arrangements at a glance. Within the fringe of tents, which contained mainly refreshments, were a row of others in pairs, about a hundred yards apart, opposite and corresponding to pairs of butts 500 yards off. These were mounds of earth, some 15 feet high, and 30 feet wide. Beyond them was a still more distant line, nearly a mile off. In front of each stood the targets - plates of iron about half an inch thick, and six feet square, white-washed, with a black centre two feet in diameter. The furthest were so distant that the centre was just visible as a little black dot not much bigger than that of an 'i'.

The tents from which the firing was going on were surrounded by crowds of people, who were kept from interfering with the shooters by a rope passed round a ring of stakes driven into the ground. The firing-tents to the right were occupied by the candidates for the Queen's Prize of £250; those on the left were hard at work at 'Aunt Sally.' We visited these first. 'Aunt Sally' is adapted from the popular venture of that name at fairs and races. You pay a shilling for your shot, and the receipts are divided at the close of the day among those who hit the centre. I walked up to the tent opposite the third pair of butts; a crowd of gallant volunteers were waiting for their turn to shoot. The tent from which they fired in rotation was about eight feet wide, open before and behind. At the entrance, a man sat with pen, ink, and paper, ready to receive the moneys, and put down the names of those who hit the centre. Some twenty men were standing in single file, treading close on each other's heels, and shuffling forward as the turn of the leading man came to fire; after which he moved off to the right, round the tent, reloaded, and took his place again in the line - like the processions in the smaller theatres. You might fire in any position. This liberty was freely used. Some stood; some knelt in the approved Hythe posture; others sat down, and gathered up their knees as if they were going to take their place in a circle of 'Hunt the Slipper;' others lay flat down upon their stomachs. The mistakes made were occasionally odd enough - 'Hollo! sir, you have forgotten to cock your rifle.' 'You have not put up your sight'. 'That is the wrong butt you are aiming at.' One fat fellow sat down with a jolt and fired right up into the air!

Close beside each target was a bullet-proof iron shed, shaped like the body of a Hansom cab off its wheels: in this the marker sat, and signalled the result of each shot. A dark-blue flag shewed that the centre was hit; a white one, that the white part of the target had been struck; a red, waved close to the ground that the ball had fallen short.

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