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1885 The Preston Rifle Club |
In the days before Federation, Australia relied heavily on volunteer militia groups, and throughout the 1860s and 1870s, the weekly results of their rifle competitions attracted as much attention in the press as the cricket and football of the day.
One of the great events in the life of Melbourne in 1862 was "The Great Battle of the Werribee", a military exercise planned between two "armies" numbering some 2,400 volunteers from north and south of Melbourne at the Werribee River. A crowd estimated at around 15,000, described as perhaps the biggest Melbourne had seen at a single event turned out to watch the fun, but to the disappointment of all, rain washed out most of the two days without hardly a shot exchanged in "anger".
There were several "butts" as the rifle ranges and their earthen target banks were called, around the Melbourne area. One of the most prominent was in what is now Middle Park, but then virtually uninhabited sand dunes. The range lay between the St. Kilda railway line and the beach with what is now Albert Park Station being known as "The Butts" until the 1880s. North of Melbourne, there was a prominent East Collingwood Rifle Corps with butts in Heidelberg Road near the junction with Queens Parade (although the latter was then called Plenty Road and the area regarded as part of Northcote).
In the 1860s, there was a Pentridge Corps, with companies from Brunswick, Coburg and Northcote, but there is no surviving evidence of any organised involvement from men in the Preston area. The Pentridge Corps used the lands bewteen the prison and the Merri Creek for its parade ground anf rifle range, at times somewhat controversely as stray bullets whistled over the heads of unsuspecting bystanders crosing shepherd's Run on the other side of the Creek.
By the mid-1880s, the volunteer corps had been firmly regulated by the Victorian Government and the catalyst behind the Preston Rifle Club was William Braithwaite, owner of one of Preston's biggest tanneries (on the north side of Murray Road when a supermarket now stands).
Braithwaite was prominent in the Volunteer Mounted Rifles, and by 1885 had attained the rank of Captain, although he in later years he was promoted to become a Colonel.
The Preston Rifle Club had its origins in May of 1885 after Braithwaite approached the Council seeking support for the plan. A meeting "to consider the advisability of forming a Rifle Corps" was scheduled for the Forester's Hall (in High Street near Regent Street). Much to everyone's surprise, neither the President of the Shire or any of the Councillors with the exception of Cr. Bartlett were amongst the gathering of around 100 people, the Collingwood Mercury suggesting, "it seems that they thought by calling the meeting they had done their duty".
Braithwaite chaired the meeting and the motion to form the Corps was moved by Mr. Olney and seconded by William Wilkinson, the town's leading solicitor, but it was a local firebrand in Frank Donovan that spoke against the plan, demanding more particulars as to exactly what form the proposed Corps would take. Wilkinson towards the end of the meeting suggested "Mr. Donovan has an Irish face and name but not an Irishman's heart", but Donovan in a later letter to the Mercury pointed out with some justification the confusion at the meeting between a Volunteer Corps and a Rifle Club, the two having quite distinct legal standing.
onovan later became involved with the Preston Football Club, but being Irish seems to have had little time for cricket, although his letter suggested the Volunteer Corps were for :"… a class that had more leisure at their disposal and where a eight hour day was general as compared to Preston where we have to work more hours" and that the locals could only support the Corps "… by devoting the Saturday afternoon usually applied to athletics".
A subsequent meeting was held at the Free Library on July 3 where Braithwaite suggested 70 men had agreed to join, but the meeting verified Donovan's thoughts on the uncertain aims of the original meeting. Braithwaite had written to what he called "Head Quarters", only to be told by a Colonel Hutton that there was no intention of establishing a Volunteer Infantry Corps in Preston, but Braithwaite if he wished could form a Mounted Rifle Corps
Braithwiate then approached the leader of the Volunteer forces, Lieutenant-Colonel Price, who confused the issue further by indicating a new Volunteer Rifle Corps could only be dealt with by the Victorian Parliament and suggested a Rifle Club instead. Finally the meeting agreed to form a Rifle Club on the motion of Cr. Bartlett and seconded by Edward Wood junior. At this stage, Donovan got his word in, suggesting instead an amalgamation with the Coburg club as there was no site available in Preston.
Wood then told the meeting arrangements had been made with a Mrs Henderson to use her paddock, the only condition (and a reasonable one at that), being "when firing at their target they should not hit her cows".
Perhaps the lack of such a slow-moving but live target dispirited a few of the gathering as when Braithwaite called for volunteers, only 10 from a total of around 100 came forward. Another handful joined after the meeting but the numbers still fell short as the minimum number of members for a Rifle Club as laid down by the Minister of Defence was 20.
Braithwaite told the Collingwood Mercury that he "was heartily ashamed of the men of Preston" but the newspaper noted that others had since joined and the total had reached 32. Despite Mrs. Henderson's generous offer, the Club established butts in a paddock owned by Mr. James Mooney, a North Preston dairy farmer.
October of 1886 saw the Rifle Club members, ""both horse and foot" attend a lavish dinner put on by George West, described as the Captain of the Preston Rifle Club, at the Preston Library. Some 70 attended and Mr. Alex Short presented the Club with a £10 trophy for competition amongst members and before the evening was concluded, another £25 had been raised for prizes. A gold medal was presented to Frank Olner from Thomastown and a Morris tube to Private Staples.
November of that year saw the Club in what appears to have been its first inter-club shoot. In a fair test of the rudimentary transport of the day, clubs from Maryborough, Ferntree Gully and Preston met at, of all places, Williamstown. Maryborough took out the competition with 535 targets, Ferntree Gully 468 and Preston finished with 458.
It was May 4, 1887 before the Club had its first big open event for members at Mooney's Paddock. The day included four shooting competitions, the main event being a match for a handsome silver cup, valued at six guineas and donated by Cr. T. A. Patterson with a silver biscuit barrel and gold pencil case for the placegetters. Messrs West and Day contributed a gold locket and silver pin for another competition "for those who have not scored 50 points at any previous competition". (Do not stand in front of these competitors!)
Seemingly to ensure that no-one went away empty handed, The Merchant's Shoot had more than 20 prizes donated by small local traders, including hams, bags of flour, joints of meat, barrels of tea, boots, slippers, a clock, an accordion and an album, and the final event was the Ladies Bracelet, donated by none other than Braithwaite.
The main event resulted in a runaway win to Mr. R. Staples with 82 points, each shooter attempting targets at four different ranges. The remarkable part of Staples effort was that he registered his highest score at the maximum range of 600 yards to beat G. Apsted on 72 points. The shooting was interspersed with interludes from "an efficient band" and several foot races and novelty events for the children before the day finished up with the Ladies Bracelet.
But think ye not that the Preston womenfolk were a bunch of rootin', tootin' and shootin' Annie Oakleys!
The men did the noisy work on behalf of the gentler sex, names being drawn from a hat and each of the ladies being represented by a male competitor with the pairings revealed after the event. Courtesy of Apsted, the prize ultimately went to Mrs. Short, a result described "as highly satisfactory, as Mr. Short had donated the first prize, a gold medal, for an earlier interclub shoot",
Included amongst the organisers was a well-known identity around the district, T. Eugene Rodda. Rodda arrived in the district in 1883, having been appointed head master of the Preston Grammar School in High Street, North Preston. He made an immediate mark on the sporting fields, winning the Preston Cricket Club's batting averages in his first two (and possibly only) seasons with the club. As well as some obvious talents wielding a cricket bat, he was also a painter and musician of some renown and later became a leading figure in the Preston Masonic Lodge, being the first to carry the title of Worshipful Master when the Lodge opened in 1889.
Undaunted by
a busy day at Mooney's Paddock, the members then returned for a concert
at the Bradford Hall where the afternoon's prizes were distributed.
The concert turned out to be a poor replacement for
a planned Military Ball. "… my spirits are at boiling point
and my feet seem performing the military valse with my own dear future
partner from whom I received two weeks ago an invitation to a ball to
be given this evening by the Preston Rifle Corps … it is
rumoured that the ball is postponed and I will no more faith in the
Preston Rifles"
"A Far Famed Name - Braithwaite of
Preston" W. Calder, 1990
Cr. Short's trophy was to be awarded to the first shooter at the Rifle Club's regular meetings to win three events, although not necessarily in succession and the prize was still being contested in July. By this stage, the club's activities featured almost weekly in the Collingwood Mercury "there are few places having so limited a population where sports of a healthy and popular kind are more liberally subsidised by private patrons than Preston".
The shooting season for some reason was during the winter months and the club had its final regular meeting late in August, but in October organised its first "grand competition" with events spread over a full week. The weather wasn't as kind as it could have been, but as well as many of the Melbourne suburban clubs being represented, the event attracted competitors from as far afield as Walhalla, Murtoa, Cerberus, Maryborough, Geelong, Diamond Creek and the Murray River. The locals were more than competitive, winning several events with the Apsted brother, F. and G. J. (known to have been builders in Plenty Road), Staples, F. West, W. Michel, and on occasions Braithwaite himself prominent in the rifle contests.
The last day added some variety with a Revolver match, taken out by Sergeant Mawson of the Geelong Corps.
The Preston Rifle Club flourished for a few years but seems to have disappeared around 1891 before another Rifle Club came into being in 1907.
Although tiny be today's standards. the Bradford Hall, in High Street, South Preston remained the major social hub of the town for many years and was a regular venue for weekly concerts and meetings of sporting, political and charity groups around the district.
Braithwaite was also a prominent councillor for many years, mayor of the Shire of Preston on a couple of occasions, and featured amongst the patrons and vice-presidents of most of the local sporting bodies.
His involvement with the military ultimately proved costly -his only som William junior was killed in France just four weeks before the end of the Frist World War and Braithwaite himself died of a heart attack in London in August of 1922 when he and his wife were on a trip to Europe to visit their son's grave.
Although no trace of the "sport" appeared in Preston, the Northcote area was long renowned for pigeon shooting competitions dating back as far as the early 1860s. Two of the earliest hotels in the district, the Pilgrim's Inn (later the Red-House and later still Croxton Park) and George Plant's Peacock Inn on Rucker's Hill at the corner of Bastings Street were fierce competitors for the favours of the followers of the sport, both promoting state-wide competitions and private matches, breeding their own birds, and in Plant's case, forming the Metropolitan Pigeon Shooting Club that met monthly at the hotel.