Steve Bates, Bradfield’s CCF shooting coach recently rediscovered a shooting cup with the following inscription:

The Temperley Cup
Presented in 1983 in memory of
Captain Robert Temperley
Bradfield College
Volunteer Rifle Corps
1883-1889

Steve was interested to know whether the Archive had any information on the cup’s history and this is what we discovered:

Captain Temperley was an Assistant Master at Bradfield from 1883 to 1889. He was instrumental in establishing the Rifle Corps and frequently raised funds for the club as, when it first started, there was no armoury, no guns, no side arms and no shooting-range, only and eventually a red uniform with green facings and the old-fashioned forage-cap. Leach writes in his history of the college that Temperley, ‘had for years been the mainstay of the corps, and to say that it then owed almost everything to his energy is a mere truism… An upper fifth … once sang:
Whene’er the corps was out of chink,
Our Captain got it in a wink;
He’s go to all the neighbours round,
Who gave him cheques for forty pound.’

At this time the newly formed Corps used a shooting range at Crookham nine miles drive away, but from 1887 there was a new shooting range within walking distance of the College on the Englefield Estate. This had a considerable effect on the shooting teams’ performance. The year this photo was taken the team came second only to Eton at the Wimbledon competition. Temperley also took a conspicuous share in the original establishment of the Public Schools Camp. In the summer of 1884, he took 20 boys on their first Berkshire Volunteers camp at Lockinge and by the time he left in 1889, the first camp exclusively for public school boys had been orchestrated and was deemed a great success.

After Temperley left, from 1889 on, there appears in the school shooting calendar a regular fixture in June called The Temperley Cup or The Captain’s Cup which was to be competed for by those who had never competed at Wimbledon for the VIII.
It is unclear when the Cup ceased to be awarded and why this was. However in 1983 to mark the centenary of the CCF at Bradfield, the wife of a late nephew of Captain Temperley contacted Lt Col Suffield-Jones, Commander of the Bradfield Corps at the time and mastermind behind the centenary celebrations, and made a gift to be spent on rifle shooting.  The new cup was subsequently purchased and annually awarded to an U15 from the club.

Does anyone remember seeing the original cup around College or know when it ceased to be awarded? And does anyone remember winning the new 1983 cup? Email lnorman@bradfieldcollege.org.uk We would love to add to our records on this interesting story, particularly since Mr Bates is considering reinstating the annual award once again.