During the late 1850's there was growing apprehension as to the prospects of French invasion of Great Britain. A massive naval expansion was announced in France in 1855. Following the attempt on Napoleon III's life by Felice Orsini on 14 January 1858, some French officers actually called for an invasion when it was discovered that Orsini manufactured his bomb in England. All this was unsettling and newspapers, particularly The Times, continued to fuel the debate as to the formation of a Volunteer Force for home defence. Finally, on 12 May 1859, the Government issued a circular authorising Volunteer corps. Later that year the National Rifle Association formed "for the encouragement of Volunteer Rifle Corps and the promotion of rifle shooting throughout Great Britain." The British Rifle Volunteers (there were also Artillery and Enginners) is akin to the US National Guard.
Contrary to expectations in some quarters the Volunteer movement became firmly established. In 1860 there were 106,443 efficient Volunteers, and the numbers steadily increased; in 1870 to 170,671, in 1880 to 196,938, and in 1888 to 220,124. Great Volunteer reviews before large crowds of spectators, and sometimes royalty, were held throughout the country where the men demonstrated their skill at drill and skirmishing. Local and regional rifle matches become commonplace and by the end of the decade of the 1860's Great Britain, with no prior tradition for rifle marksmanship, had thousands of trained riflemen.
Th Volunteers were armed with the same rifles as the regular Army, albeit issue lagged a little behind as arms evolved and troops were re-equipped. The original arm of the Volunteers was the muzzle loading Enfield rifle. In September 1870 this was replaced by the Snider, a breech loading conversion of the Enfield. The adoption of the Martini-Henry breech loading rifle by the Volunteers was commenced in 1879 but not completed until 1885. The issue of the Lee-Metford magazine rifle was authorised in 1895.
The National Rifle Association held its first Annual Rifle Meeting on Wimbledon Common in 1860, where it remained through to 1889. In 1890 it moved to Bisley, which is still the current home of the NRA. They are celebrating their 150th Annual Rifle Meeting this year.
Competitions were broadly separated into Volunteers using the military arm of issue, all-comers shooting 'small-bore' rifles, and team shooting. At the first rifle meeting only 299 Volunteer competitors took part and the total aggregate of entries for Volunteer prizes was 594. For the all-comers' prizes the number of entries was 720, giving a grand total of entries of all kinds of 1,314. By 1888 the meeting had become immense; the total aggregate of entries was an astonishing 41,670. In addition to this, the enormous number of 80,188 entries was made for the various Pool shooting and Running Deer events. Shooting was held at ranges out to 1,000 yards.
For the gun makers of the time this development created a new market in the form of discerning riflemen seeking accurate long range arms. Following principles established by Joseph Whitworth, there developed a special class of ‘small-bore’ target rifle. The majority of these rifles were around .451 calibre, and the contemporay term ‘small-bore’ used to distinguish them from the ‘large-bore’ service rifle of .577 calibre. There were many makers, including Baker, Beasley, Bissel, Crockart, Edge, Henry, Kerr, Lancaster, Newton, Parsons, Rigby, Turner and Whitworth.
The so called 'Volunteer Rifle' made by Parker-Hale (and later others) is a generic form of small-bore military match rifle that would have been used in all-comers competitions during the early-mid 1860s. It was later supplanted by the full match rifles. Both originals and modern reproductions are still used in competition today. Parker-Hale introduced their popular series of reproductions of the Enfield family of muzzle loading rifles, commencing in 1972. The 'Volunteer' rifle first appeared c1976.
David