Hi Dave,
I am familiar with many of the named individuals in these pictures; they were Guernsey based shooters and between the wars were among the most successful air rifle match shooters within the U.K. and Channel Islands in that Guernsey shooters including these gents won a greater proportion of medals than anyone else. Ironically, they were not fans of bell target shooting as they thought scoring was too imprecise and preferred paper target matches such as the 1930 SMRC Championships.
Kingsland won the 1930 SMRC championships, which were part sponsored by BSA, who generously donated 2 fine cups for top team and top individual.
I'm working on a book on early air rifle target shooting and will share an extract detailing this competition from my draft with you, as you may find it of interest.
Kingsland were up against the L.M.S. Temperance Institute in the first round and beat them robustly by 576 to 481 points. Kingsland’s Mr E Despointes was the only shooter to score a perfect 100 in the first round and set the pace for the series. To show this was no fluke, Despointes did the same again in the third round, when his team beat St Martin’s, also from Guernsey 575 to 551. Kingsland were up against Southampton Gas Co in the Semi Finals and beat them 575 to 560, which placed them in the Final against the North United team from Guernsey. There was little point in staging the Final on the mainland and both teams shot it out shoulder to shoulder in their own locality. Kingsland won with a team score of 578 against 566 by North United, earning each team member a silver medal with a gold centre, whilst the runners up were awarded a silver SMRC medal each.
There's more but I want to save some for the final draft!
I'd have loved to come across pictures such as these as they would be ideal for inclusion in my work - well done for finding them Dave.
Kind regards,
John