Sporting guns

Subject: Sporting guns Thu Nov 23, 2023 9:54 pm

Would officers have with them "sporting guns" and would they have been allowed to hunt during the campaign?
(as seen at the beginning of the movie Zulu)

Posts : 363 Join date : 2017-02-05 Location : Texas, U.S.A.

Stefaan,

I don’t know about officers of the army going on hunting expeditions during the Zulu War, but I have one report of naval officers doing some hunting. While at Fort Pearson, before the start of the war, Lieutenant William des V. Hamilton of HMS Active wrote in a letter “Christmas Day went off very quietly. Mr. Berry had service in the morning, and in the afternoon a party went out shooting, and brought back a buck. We had a most sumptuous dinner in the evening, having borrowed the hospital tent from the doctor for the occasion to have it in.”

Tom

Subject: Re: Sporting guns Thu Nov 23, 2023 10:49 pm

Stefaan,

Captain Bowlby of the 94th appears to have done, as he was killed on a leopard hunt in 1880.

JY

Posts : 363 Join date : 2017-02-05 Location : Texas, U.S.A.

Stefaan,

There is an article written by Ian Knight in the Journal of the Anglo Zulu War Historical Society that provides good information about hunting during the war. Go to the following link:

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Tom

Subject: Re: Sporting guns Fri Nov 24, 2023 6:38 am

Thanks Tom and John for the info.

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