Ralph Payne-Gallwey Explained

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an appeal for conscription to be brought in, to greatly increase the size of the British Army.^[4] The also compiled an unpublished manuscript on archery, including tables of flight distances, illustrations and photographs of bows, and information on Turkish and Chinese archery.^[5]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)

External links

• • The Book of Duck Decoys by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, 1886 (full text)
• The War: a crticism, 1915 (full text)

Notes and References

1. John Robinson, Felling the Ancient Oaks (Aurum Press, 2011,),
2. Andrew Renshaw, Wisden on the Great War: The Lives of Cricket's Fallen 1914-1918 (A. & C. Black, 2014), p. 90
3. Book: Ralph Payne-Gallwey. The Book of the Crossbow: With an Additional Section on Catapults and Other Siege Engines. 2012. Courier Corporation. 978-0-486-13926-5.
4. R. F. Payne-Gallwey, The War: a crticism, June 1915, full text, accessed 9 February 2023
5. Web site: 2020-03-09 . Archery Manuscript by Yorkshire Landowner Comes to Auction . 2024-07-19 . Tennants Auctioneers.