This film was made by Bradford Cine Club member Laurie Wright, one many films he made and donated to the YFA, along with a collection of films made by other club members.  The film is of the eighth Yorkshire Archery Association (YAA) Championships, which was held on the site of the York Railway Club – hence the railway carriages on the edge of the field. Work place archery clubs were not unusual at this time: many workplaces, like Pilkington’s, started archery clubs, and in fact they may...

This film was made by Bradford Cine Club member Laurie Wright, one many films he made and donated to the YFA, along with a collection of films made by other club members.  The film is of the eighth Yorkshire Archery Association (YAA) Championships, which was held on the site of the York Railway Club – hence the railway carriages on the edge of the field. Work place archery clubs were not unusual at this time: many workplaces, like Pilkington’s, started archery clubs, and in fact they may account for as many as 50% of all archery clubs in the 1950s.

Some people will certainly know, and identify, many of the contestants. The Yorkshire Archery Association lists past winners of the various competitions. For 1962 they are as follows: Outdoor Lady Most Hits, Mrs K Farrar; Outdoor Lady Recurve Champion, Miss Shirley M Lyons; Outdoor Lady Highest Second Class, Miss J C Wilkinson of Leeds; Outdoor Lady Highest Third Class, Mrs S Bowskill of Brad Wood; Outdoor Gent Highest Second Class, M Robinson; Outdoor Men Recurve Champion, Mr John Seddon; Outdoor Gent Most Hits, Mr D Gunson; Outdoor Gent Highest Third Class, GW Brook; Outdoor Gent Highest Novice Score, Mr K N Bond of Adel; Outdoor Gent Most Golds, Mr W J Alexander

John Seddon, who was Outdoor Gent Recurve Champion for Yorkshire in 1961, can be seen receiving his trophy, a plate with an arrow on it. John recounts on an edition of the ITV programme, The Way We Were, that in the 1950s it was still a gentleman’s sport, and those entering it from working class backgrounds tended to be snubbed. Going on to describe the competition itself, he states that in a line of targets there were up to two hundred archers, with six to a target.  They all shoot together on the command of the whistle, as seen in the film.  Depending on the weather it could take between five and seven hours to shoot off all the rounds. Not much has changed since then, and men and women still compete separately, a practice that is defended by the fact that so many other Olympic sports retain this division.

The use of bows goes back into prehistory, with the first stone arrowheads being found in Africa, from possibly 50,000 years ago.  In ancient China and Japan archery became highly refined and ritualised, varying according to ones position in society, and specialised in shooting accurately when riding on a horse. This eastern practice may be the first instance of archery being used for purposes other than warfare – sporting or even aesthetic. In China too there is the first evidence of the crossbow. Historically there have been many different types of bows, reflecting different uses and cultures.  Evidence of archery can be found in Yorkshire in most eras going almost back to the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago.

The use of the longbow in medieval warfare has become part of English folklore, from William’s (Norman) victory at the Battle of Hastings to the victory of Henry V at the bloody Battle of Agincourt in 1415. The long bow was developed by the Egyptians around 3,500 BCE.  However, during the crusades Turkish and other Muslim warriors on horseback used the composite recurve bows, adopted from the Mongols and sometimes credited to the Assyrians.  Composite bows were typically made of a wooden core with a horn layer on the interior portion of the bow's curve and sinew on the exterior. Later the Assyrians used them to great effect against the Hittite and Babylonians, who then took up the bows themselves. Most often these were used on horseback; but the Byzantines were later to use longbows on foot, and this became the most usual use of a bow in Europe, enabling greater distance, power and accuracy.

So vital was the longbow to warfare that during the 100 year war with France, Edward III (not for the first time) felt he needed to issue the following proclamation: “that every man in the same country, if he be able-bodied, shall, upon holidays, make use, in his games, of bows and arrows… and so learn and practise archery. Moreover we ordain that you prohibit under penalty of imprisonment all and sundry from such stone, wood and iron throwing; handball, football, or hockey; coursing and cock-fighting, or other such idle games.” (Davies) Crossbows were also used extensively in medieval times, especially on horse back, although they are less powerful than the longbow – because the shorter drawlength imparts less of the pent up force to the arrow thereby reducing velocity. However, with the use of firearms against the Spanish Armada in 1588, through the seventeenth century, as witnessed in the English Civil War, musketeers gradually replaced the longbow; so that by 1695 local militias were required to have calivers and muskets instead of longbows.
It isn’t certain when archery began as a sport, but an Anglo-Saxon poem, The Endowments of Man, lists archery among the sports fitting for training a young man for war. This connection between archery as sport and as practice for war continued for many centuries until its decline in the sixteenth century. Apparently Henry VIII popularised target practice, and he was aided by Roger Aschem, who in 1545, two years before Henry VIII’s death, published Toxophilus, a book aimed at preserving the knowledge of archery (Toxophilus is the love of archery). In the feudal era it was normally yeomen who were archers.  Knights would use crossbows; but there developed other para-military, or chivalric, sports for the cavalrymen, such as jousting and swordsmanship.

Archery became popular as a sport in the 16th and 17th centuries, with the first organised group, the Royal Company of Archers, founded in 1676. Later the Royal Taxophilite Society was established in 1781, and the first Grand National Archery Meeting in 1844 at Knavesmire in York. Although it was not included in the first of the modern Olympic games in 1896, fittingly held in Athens, it was in the following one in 1900 in Paris (at least for men, women followed in 1904). But because of the lack of uniformity in the rules it was dropped as an event after 1920, and although the international governing body for archery, the Federation Internationale de Tira l'Arc (FITA), was founded in 1931, it didn’t reappear as an Olympic sport until the 1972 Munich Games.

David O’Carroll in his history of the Bowmen of Adel states that Yorkshire has a strong tradition in archery (see References). After the decline following the English Civil War, the Yorkshire Society of Archers was formed in 1673 at a meeting of Scorton Arrow, a village in North Yorkshire – predating the Jockey Club founded in 1752. This started the Antient Scorton Silver Arrow competition which has been continuously contested ever since, making it the world's longest established recorded sporting event (see Smith, References).  A film of this from 1964 can be found at the Pathé website. The Wharfedale Archers are recorded in 1737 as having their butts (targets) at Farnley Hall near Otley – now the Aire & Wharfedale Archers, based at Ilkey.  Women started to participate in competition in 1787, and two years later the Yorkshire Archers (1789-94) held meetings on the Knavesmire in York and in the grounds of their various members’ homes, including the estate of the Countess of Mexborough in Chapel-Town, then just north of Leeds, and at nearby Bramhope Hall. Not surprisingly, given its historic association with archery, a Leeds Archers Society was formed in 1848.

However, most archery clubs disappeared towards the end of the 19th century and it didn’t really take off as a modern sport until the middle of the twentieth century, with Yorkshire leading the way. A number of Yorkshire clubs were formed around this time: Scarborough (1934), White Rose (1944), Abbeydale Archers (1947), and the Bowmen of Adel and Bronte Archers, both formed in 1948. Geoff Gaunt notes that in 1950 Yorkshire had the highest concentration of archery societies outside London, and that there were six Yorkshire archers in the British team at the World Archery Championships in Copenhagen in that year (see his excellent booklet for a detailed account).   Archery grew in the 1950s when the Victorian longbow gave way to the Accles and Pollock tubular steel bow, with more consistent aluminium arrows replacing wooden ones – the first steel bow to be used at the Antient Scorton Silver Arrow competition was in 1948.

It is interesting to see the bows that can be seen in the film: these are mainly wooden recurve bows with laminated limbs, although we also see the recurve take-apart bow, with metal riser (handle) and laminated limbs, which are sometimes given as coming into fashion at a later date – a recurve bow is one where the ends curve away from the archer. Bows continued to develop: in the 1980's the compound bow – the modern one not to be confused with the traditional kind – originating in the US in 1967, became popular, with stabilisers, pressure buttons, cams, pulleys and clickers (a device to give an audible signal when the arrow has been drawn to the required length).  These make using a bow much easier: at least in taking out much of the strain, using pulleys or cams, and cables to take over the work of limbs. Clearly these have been a big boost for some. Later still carbon arrows were introduced and bowstrings made from Dacron to Kevlar to Fastflight, a man-made material stronger than Kevlar.  Some might think that this later kit takes too much of the thrill and skill out of using a bow, and they are not allowed to be used in the Olympics – although they are in the Paralympics. Not that these were necessary for disabled archers to compete against the able-bodied at the festival of sport in 1951.

It may be that some of the increase in joining archery clubs in the 1950s can be put down to the emergent influence of TV. In 1953 children’s television ran Robin Hood for six months, and later there was The Adventures Of Robin Hood which ran between 1955 and 1960 – not forgetting the 1938 film of the same name with Errol Flynn. There was also the similarly titled The Adventures Of William Tell, starring Conrad Phillips, which was aired in 1958 and 1959 – although most archery clubs in Britain do not allow crossbows because of their bad reputation, or at least that of those who use them for anti-social behaviour. Today archery has become more technical, but for those seeking to rekindle the romance of the past there is always the British Longbow Society, formed in 1951.

(with thanks to John Seddon, Dave Phillips, County Secretary of the Yorkshire Archery Association and Nick Beeson, Secretary, Bowmen of Adel)

References

Norman Davies, The Isles: A History, Oxford University Press, 1999.
Geoff Gaunt, Some Aspects of the Later History of Archery in Yorkshire, Yorkshire Archery Association, 1989
Kathleen Haywood and Catherine Lewis, Archery: Steps to Success, 3rd edition, Human Kinetics, 2006.
Bill Mallon with Ian Buchanan, Historical Dictionary of the Olympic Movement, 3rd edition, The Scarecrow Press, Oxford, 2006.
Julia Smith, Fairs, Feasts and Frolics: customs and traditions in Yorkshire, Smith settle, Otley, 1989.
Yorkshire Archery Association
Michael Hinckley, History of the Composite Bow
The Bowmen of Adel, A short history of the club 1948-2008
The Society of Archers and The Antient Silver Arrow
British Longbow Society