Ralph Payne-Gallwey

"Letters to young Shooters". Caricature by Spy published in Vanity Fair in 1893.

Sir Ralph William Frankland Payne-Gallwey, 3rd Baronet (1848–1916) was an English engineer, historian, ballistics expert, and artist.

Life

The son of Sir William Payne-Gallwey, 2nd Baronet, and his wife Emily Anne, a daughter of Sir Robert Frankland-Russell, 7th Baronet, the young Payne-Gallwey was educated at Eton College. In 1881, he inherited from his father the Thirkleby Hall estate in the North Riding of Yorkshire.[1]

He married Edith Alice Usborne. Their son William Payne-Gallwey was a soldier and first-class cricketer who was killed in action during the First World War.[2] As a result of that, Payne-Gallwey decided to sell his Yorkshire estate.[1]

Works

Payne-Gallwey began by writing books on sport. Early works included The Book of Duck Decoys (1886) and Letters to Young Shooters (1892). His The Crossbow appeared in 1903,[3] and his High Pheasants in Theory and Practice in 1913. In later life, he also turned to history and current affairs, with The Mystery of Maria Stella, Lady Newborough (1907), A History of the George Worn on the Scaffold by Charles I (1908) and The War, A Criticism (June, 1915). This was an appeal for conscription to be brought in, to greatly increase the size of the British Army.[4] The also compiled an unpublished manuscript on archery, including tables of flight distances, illustrations and photographs of bows, and information on Turkish and Chinese archery.[5]

Publications

  • The Crossbow, Mediaeval and Modern, Military and Sporting; its Construction, History and Management, with a Treatise on the Balista and Catapult of the Ancients (London: Longmand Green & Co., 1903; reprinted by Holland of London, 1958; new edition by Skyhorse Publishing, 2007)
  • The Fowler in Ireland, or Notes on the Haunts and Habits of Wildfowl and Seafowl: Including Instructions in the Art of Shooting and Capturing Them
  • The Book of Duck Decoys: Their Construction, Management, and History (London: John van Voorst, 1886)
  • Letters to Young Shooters (1892)
  • The Mystery of Maria Stella, Lady Newborough (London: Edward Arnold, 1907)
  • A History of the George Worn on the Scaffold by Charles I (London: Edward Arnold, 1908)
  • High Pheasants in Theory and Practice (London and New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1913)
  • The War, A Criticism (London: Spottiswoode & Co., 1915)

Notes

  1. ^ a b John Robinson, Felling the Ancient Oaks (Aurum Press, 2011, ISBN 978-1845136703),
  2. ^ Andrew Renshaw, Wisden on the Great War: The Lives of Cricket's Fallen 1914-1918 (A. & C. Black, 2014), p. 90 ISBN 978-1-4088-3236-3
  3. ^ Ralph Payne-Gallwey (2012). The Book of the Crossbow: With an Additional Section on Catapults and Other Siege Engines. Courier Corporation. ISBN 978-0-486-13926-5.
  4. ^ R. F. Payne-Gallwey, The War: a criticism, June 1915, full text, accessed 9 February 2023
  5. ^ "Archery Manuscript by Yorkshire Landowner Comes to Auction". Tennants Auctioneers. 9 March 2020. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
Baronetage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Baronet
(of Hampton Hill)
1881–1916 		Succeeded by
John Frankland Payne-Gallwey


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