Riflemen's Club. Sir A. Conan Doyle's Team
Riflemen's Club is an article published in The Daily News on 4 may 1903.
Riflemen's Club
SIR A. CONAN DOYLE'S TEAM.
A pleasant drive of about three miles from Haslemere to Hindhead took visitors on Saturday to Undershaw, the country house of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, where a rifle-shooting contest by picked men from nineteen clubs was in progress. Devonshire can boast of its lanes and Kent of its gardens, but it may be doubted whether on a cloudless morning in spring any part of England excels in picturesque beauty this happily-secluded spot in Surrey. In this pleasant region Sir A. Conan Doyle, whose name is synonymous with that of "Sherlock Holmes," has made his home, and it was here, amid the peaceful environment of park and gardens, that the competitors practised those arts of war which are intended to render more likely the preservation of peace.
The rifle teams were numbered by fours, each quartet representing one of the nineteen rifle clubs in the counties of Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire, brought together by the host of the day for friendly competition. Chief amongst them was Sir Arthur himself, clad in easy knickerbocker suit, surmounted by a drab deerstalker turned up on one side, and bearing the monogram, "U.R.C." When he returned from the South African War he formed a local rifle club on a democratic basis, free from the rigid discipline of military drill, but sufficiently cohesive to keep the members together, and to give them a keen interest in becoming good shots. "And now,"
said he, "we have two hundred members, each finding his own cartridges, and many a one so fond of his rifle that he all but takes it to bed with him. My team this morning were the publican and his barman, the electrical engineer from the station, and myself, and as you see we have up to now made the head score."
And the man of letters beamed as genially as when later he showed to guests in his dining room the Boer flag, torn by wind and weather, which he had brought home from the Transvaal. Another trophy bearing on the business of the day was a silver statuette of a rifleman, given to Sir Arthur by Mr. Longman (with whom he was associated in hospital work in the South African Campaign) as a challenge cup in rifle competition.
The rifle clubs competing were mainly descended from the Undershaw Club, and are part of a total of something like 40,000 men all over the country qualifying for patriotic service. About half of them are affiliated with the National Rifle Association. The names of the competing clubs have for the most part a suggestion of the village life which is brightened and enlivened by their open-air practice as marksmen. Service rifles were used, with the Morris tube inserted, and sighted up to 600 yards. The teams engaged were Undershaw, Beefolds, Byfleet, Brightstone, Haslemere, Boyatt, Guildford, Albury, Merrow, Newland Corner, Wotton, Shere, London and South Western Railway, South Fulham, Epsom, Leatherhead, Blackmoor, Grayshott Hall, and Portsmouth. With the first shot of the day. Sir Arthur made a bull's-eye, on the four-inch centre of the target, but, being only a "sighter," the achievement did not count in the score.
The contest resulted in the victory of the London and South Western Railway team with 164 points. Undershaw was second with 162 points, and Beefolds third with 161. In the Undershaw team one man scored 46 out of a possible 50, and another 45.
