The record for the 60 yards (144 arrows being shot) medal, presented by the same gentleman in 1866, was also started in that same year by Mr. T. Boulton, with 824 score from 142 hits. This record was surpassed by Mr. W. Rimington in 1872, his score being 840 from the same number of hits.
A good record for best shooting at 100 yards at the annual West Berks meeting, when 216 arrows are shot at that distance, was first reached by Major C. H. Fisher in 1871, when he made 140 hits with 556 score. In 1877 he carried the record on to 572 score with 136 hits. Mr. C. H. Everett made a still further advance with 155 hits and 633 score in 1880; and in 1881 Mr. H. H. Palairet made 153 with 623 score.
To Mrs. Butt (then Miss S. Dawson) still belongs the best 'record' for the 'Ladies' Day' of the Royal Toxophilite Society, the largest annual gathering of ladies, when the single National Round of 48 arrows at 60 and 24 arrows at 50 yards is shot. She made 70 hits with 406 score in 1867; in 1875 she scored 401 with 69 hits; and in 1885 Mrs. P. F. Legh made 70 hits with 400 score.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PUBLIC ARCHERY MEETINGS AND THE DOUBLE YORK AND OTHER ROUNDS.
In 1791, ten years after the revival of archery by the establishment of the Royal Toxophilite Society, a public meeting of all the Archery Societies, which had already become very numerous in the United Kingdom, was held on Blackheath, and this meeting was followed by other similar meetings in 1792 and 1793. Here ended this series of National Archery Meetings, and in the early part of the present century the use of the bow appears to have languished.
The records of the Scorton Arrow Meetings go back, in an almost uninterrupted succession of annual meetings, to the year 1673. These meetings, though originally confined to a limited locality—'six miles from Eriholme-upon-Tees,' near Richmond, in Yorkshire—were open to all comers. In 1842 and 1843 these meetings were held at Thirsk, in Yorkshire, and to those present thereat the establishment of an annual Grand National Archery Meeting is certainly owing.
The first Grand National Archery Meeting was held at York on August 1 and 2, 1844, the Scorton Arrow Meeting having been again held at Thirsk on July 30 in the same year. It was originally intended that the meeting should occupy one day only, but the weather proved so unfavourable on the first day that the Round had to be finished on the second day. To the enterprising archers of Yorkshire is also due the invention of the York Round, which has since become the almost universally acknowledged test of the comparative excellence of all archers. This Round—which is now always shot on each of the two days of a public archery meeting—consisting of six dozen arrows at 100 yards, four dozen arrows at 80 yards, and two dozen arrows at 60 yards, was so arranged in the belief that about the same scores would then be made at each distance; and this has been proved tolerably correct as regards the average of archers, though not so as regards Mr. H. A. Ford, Major C. H. Fisher, Mr. H. H. Palairet, Mr. C. E. Nesham, and some others, when shooting in their best form, as it would be clearly impossible for them to score, in four dozen arrows at 60 yards, the 495 which Mr. H. A. Ford made in twelve dozen arrows at 100 yards at Cheltenham in 1857, or the 466 which he made on the same occasion in eight dozen arrows at 80 yards. Efforts have occasionally been made to reduce the quantity of shooting at 100 yards, for the benefit of those who look upon 80 yards as a long distance; and it has also been suggested that a few arrows might be taken from 80 yards and added to 60 yards; but it is generally acknowledged that the York Round cannot well be mended.
The Ladies' National Round of four dozen arrows at 60 yards, and two dozen arrows at 50 yards, shot on each of two days, did not become the established Round until 1851, and then the only reason of its adoption was that it corresponded in quantities with the shooting of the gentlemen at 80 yards and 60 yards.