3-071-122 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches at the Wimbledon Camp of the National Rifle Association, 1883. 'The fly which is never full; Any more goin?'; A gentleman who thoroughly enjoys himself; His first uniform; The ubiquitous one; Private "Dummy" on sentry duty; The man who takes it easy; Men who mean business; Love at a cottage. The serious business of shooting for prizes under the direction of the National Rifle Association, at its twenty-fourth annual meeting, began on Monday...but our Artist...treats only the humorous and amusing incidents, the mere personal by-play, of this popular gathering, with its mixed company of visitors, who make it a sort of holiday occasion. The familiar habits and manners of different classes of Londoners, at an open-air suburban assembly of this pleasurable kind, afford a diverting contrast to the regulation stiffness of military costume, and to the primitive needs of temporary camp-life on Wimbledon-common. About twelve hundred persons, mostly the members of leading Volunteer Corps, slept in tents on Sunday night, including the London Rifle Brigade, London Scottish, Civil Service, 19th Middlesex, 3rd London, Victorias, South Middlesex, and 1st Surrey, all of whom occupy the same ground that they have done for many years past'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.