27 February 2024
The Field Magazine Rifle Trials
In the modern era we are very used to products being extensively tested and reviewed to guarantee some credibility. This was not necessarily the case in the pre-standardisation, Victorian era. This was a time when the published periodical was approaching its heyday. All manner of opinions were available and in an increasingly crowded market place it was important to stand out.
In the modern era we are very used to products being extensively tested and reviewed to guarantee some credibility. This was not necessarily the case in the pre-standardisation, Victorian era. This was a time when the published periodical was approaching its heyday. All manner of opinions were available and in an increasingly crowded market place it was important to stand out. The Field magazine, a vibrant, respected publication now, one of the few still able to be proud of its integrity today, was then under the stewardship of its founder editor Mark Lemon. Lemon was also the founder of Punch magazine and a noted playwright. In 1857 he asked Dr John Henry Walsh to accept the editorship in his place. Walsh brought with him a very modern idea that was to radically transform both the magazine and the fortunes of Holland & Holland. As well as a qualified surgeon and lecturer on that subject, Walsh was a published author in his own right and had already produced works on a variety of British rural sports.
As well as being something of a Victorian rural polymath, Dr. Walsh was not short of ambition. Very quickly after occupying the editor's chair he established the first of the ‘Field Trials’ to prove which of the many patents coming out of the UK guntrade had merit and which were baseless, designed only to attract the attention of the easily impressed. Held in April 1858 in the Ashburnham grounds of Chelsea next to the Cremone Gardens, the first of these trials brought to a conclusion the argument that had run on for some time over the various merits of breech loading and muzzle loading firearms. Then in 1875 the value of the radically new idea of choke boring shotguns was examined in a trial at the All England Croquet Club at Wimbledon (site of the tennis championships today). The trial lasted six weeks and was personally supervised by Dr Walsh. We are now so used to choke as a concept it may seem obvious to us but to a late Victorian this was the cutting edge of gun development.
By then Dr. Walsh had established for himself a reputation for integrity and due diligence. He was also respected for the fact that these endeavours were not simply theoretical for him. As a sportsman himself he had a keen (but not vested) interest in the latest technology. As a younger man he had lost part of his left hand after a barrel had burst so he had some skin in the game. He was not afraid of controversy either. His public statements - possibly as a result of the accident he had - that the powder used in testing gun barrels for proof was 50% less than the pressure required resulted in legal action. The Guardians of the Birmingham Proof House sued Walsh and won. Even though it cost Dr Walsh 40 shillings in damages he did not hold a grudge. As soon as the trial was over he approached the Proof House with some suggestions that resulted in some useful changes being adopted.
In July 1883 an editorial in The Field suggested a public trial of rifles after a slew of correspondence and column inches had been devoted to the subject. The pace of the development of the trial was quick, deliberately so to prevent gunmakers constructing specialised rifles for the trial itself, and by early August the rules had been set down. All expenses were to be met by the magazine. There was to be no excuse for not entering, although regrettably some noted rifle makers did not enter citing preparations for the forthcoming Calcutta Exhibition as the reason. In reality Holland & Holland's growing reputation for superior rifles may well have put some off and they were the only makers to enter all 10 classes and as Donald Dallas puts it in "Holland & Holland The Royal Gunmaker" his excellent history of the firm, this was "a remarkable feat showing their experience in building such a wide variety of rifles."
The trials were held in October of that year. The last two days succumbed to inclement weather and (in an unfortunate portent of modern shooting ground issues) a noise complaint from a neighbour. They reconvened at a new venue in South London. Holland's chosen man for the trial was William Froome - their regular tester of all calibres at their Kensal Green proving ground. A man of unusually sturdy frame, he was widely regarded as the pre-eminent rifle shot of his day, but even taking that into account it is still an astonishing achievement that Holland & Holland "swept the board" winning all ten classes.
The Field magazine was justly effusive in its praise for the firm and it remains the signal for the transition of Holland & Holland from just another gunmaker to the elite rifle maker in the world. But it was not only The Field magazine (themselves using the trials as sales promotion for the magazine) who were commenting. The wonderfully Victorian sounding G.T. Teasdale-Buckell, himself a newspaper editor, writing in 'Experts on Guns & Shooting' (published in 1900) summed up the trails. "These trials ... taught the sportsmen who had no opportunity for the self-study of rifle shooting what sort of diagram to expect from a new rifle."
Through years of experimentation and testing Holland & Holland had raised the bar in rifle accuracy. In the most public way possible they set a standard for others to try and meet.
