Hunting Game in 1892

It’s more than a hundred years since the ritual shooting of the first grouse, on 12 August, signalled the start of the hunting season. Given the royal seal of approval by Queen Victoria, when she moved her court to Deeside, the hunters also moved north. Lured, not by the sunny climate, but by the sense of solitude and freedom among dramatic Scottish mountains, it was a huge contrast from crowded city to spectacularly beautiful wild open spaces.

To escape the midsummer city heat, the politician had packed his rods, guns and cartridge cases and was waiting with his two setters when the cab came to take him from his home in Bloomsbury to King’s Cross Station for the overnight ‘Scotch Mail’. By late evening on 11 August 1892, he had settled into his sleeping compartment on the train — the hectic business of the House of Commons already fading.