Enjoying shooting's Golden Age

But when exactly was it? Did the Edwardians experience our sport’s finest hour or did it occur between the wars?

- RICHARD NEGUS

The wistful notion that ‘things were better back then’ is a popular, if largely foundation free, belief. Society looks fondly at the homefront of World War II, declaring it our nation’s finest hour, a time of stoic ‘Blitz’ spirit. Largely forgotten is that this same home-front saw serious crime, such as murder and rape, increase by 57%.

Shooting, too, has a rose-tinted history, the period of popular choice being the late Victorian/Edwardian era. Leaf through the browning pages of a coroneted gamebook dated 1905 and images of high society and huge bags are conjured as a time of things ‘done right’. The narrative continues with the sporting art of the period. Swan-necked ladies, bedecked in bustles and bittern-feather hats, wait like greyhounds to applaud their beau for a left-and-right. The male Guns are of the neatest order; no mud clings to their gleaming brogues or spats. Their ’taches are bold, barrels are damascus, and jackets cut like a waspish remark. They, too, are athletically slim, all bar King Edward VII, of course, who was very fat indeed, but was this really the golden time for lowland game shooting?

Gamebirds