Who Invented the Archer's Shooting Glove?

[Wade Phillips]

Who Invented the Archer's Shooting Glove???

Let's refer back to original documents from the era that recorded the use of Shooting Gloves ...

During the 1920s, the Archer's Shooting Glove was in common use in the United States.

The Archers Company Catalog of 1928, page 48 shows and describes two different shooting gloves and a two hole tab...

In 1928, The Archers Company was located in Pinehurst, North Carolina and was owned by it founder, Phillip Rousnevelle.

   

Note that lines 4/5 below Shooting Tab, state "the shooting glove now in common use."

   

Can anyone cite an older reference to an Archer's Shooting Glove?

[Hud]

This may be hard to beat, because there is only a few years difference between the time Saxton Pope published Hunting with the Bow and Arrow, unless they were in use in other countries.

[Wade Phillips]

Barry,

I would bet money that there is a shooting glove older than 1928. I say this because Rounsevelle used the ideas of many others to make tackle to market.

Rounsevelle borrowed ideas from Saxton Pope's 1923 "Hunting With the Bow & Arrow" for his own Archery Handbooks....

Rounsevelle knew Pope on a personal level as early as 1925. I have an original letter that Saxton Pope wrote in 1925 while in Africa to Rounsevelle. The letter in its original envelope, was in Rounsevelle's personal scrapbook that I acquired several years ago.

Rounsevelle did not have the depth of experience that other great bowmen of the 1920s had. He was more of a marketer than an inventor, bowman or hunting archer.

[Liquid Amber]

Target Archery - Elmer, 1946

[pg. 352-364] Passages about tabs, stall, gloves, quivers, etc.

[Liquid Amber]

There's a drawing of one on page 58 of "Ford on Archery [1887]" edited by Butts.  The copy I have is inscribed and signed by Samuel G. McMeen who gave it to Abner Sheperdson in 1917.

Looks like they date back to Ascham.

[Wade Phillips]

Cliff,

Thank you so much for your posts. You can always be counted upon to turn to the appropriate page in your library. Your help is always invaluable in saving me time looking trough page after page.

There is nothing quite like enjoying the aroma of opening these 1800s books, and reading the words that prove nearly everything new in archery at any point in time, had probably already been invented years earlier by another bowman.  

1858 London - "The Theory and Practice of Archery" - by Horace Ford. This scan is the entire page 58...

Ford's Fig. 25 is very nicely drawn, but unfortunately, it fails to illustrate the how the two ends of the wrist strap connect to each other...

 

Also note that on page 57, under the title, "The Shooting-Glove, And Other Protectors for the Fingers."  Ford speaks of "The old-fashioned archer's glove - still in use in Scotland and perhaps occasionally elsewhere-", very interesting reading those words penned 151 years ago...

For those unfamiliar with Horace Ford, he was England's Champion Archer 1850 to 1859 and 1867.

[Crookedcreek]

Ford's Fig. 25 is very nicely drawn, but unfortunately, it fails to illustrate the how the two ends of the wrist strap connect to each other...

 No doubt.....it was Velcro !!  

[Tox Collector]

There is a chapter [pp.121] in "The English Bowmen", 1801 by T. Roberts that is captioned 'Use of the Shooting-Glove - Ancient Shooting-Glove - Materials - Fingers Used in Drawing the String - Handle of Bow Formerly Waxed - Now Covered with Velvet, Shag Worsted Lace'.

Robert begins by quoting Ascham saying: "A Shooting Glove, says Ascham, is chiefly to have a man's fingers from being hurt; that he may be able to bear the sharp string to the utmost of his strength.  When a man shoots, the might of his shoot lies on the foremost finger and on the ringman; for the middle finger, which is the longest, like a lubber starts back, and bears no weight of the string in a manner at all.  Therefore, the two other fingers must have thicker leather, and that must have thickest of all, whereon a man looseth most; and for sure loosing, the foremost finger is most apt, because it holdeth best; and for that purpose nature hath, as it were, yoked it with the thumb...

Roberts continues to quote Ascham on the details of shooting gloves.  Ascham also notes that some bowmen use gloves on their bowhand as well.

Roberts then notes the following are generally used [remember, this is 1801]:

1.  The shooting glove; which consists of finger-stalls fastened to thongs buttoned round the wrist; and may be used with or without a glove.
2.  Finger-stalls; sewed to a common glove.
3.  The tab; which is a piece of flat leather, into which the gingers are let, and which lies on the inside of the hand.

Looks like archers have used some protection on their fingers for a while.  Of course, thumb rings were used in other parts of the world for a similar purpose coupled with the need for a clean release when shooting a short composite bow particularly from horseback.

Wade, I like those pictures from your Archers Company collection -- neat!

Tox Collector

[Wade Phillips]

Tox Collector - Thank you so much for your post. Like Cliff, you can always be counted upon to look up the information that us collectors of old literature have read and re-read over the years. Will have to start another thread about The Archers Company and we can compare notes about what we have…

I am certain that if we dug deep enough that we could establish that the archer's shooting glove was in use well before Ascham's 1545 writings.

Fred Bear's 1936/1937 “Archer’s Glove” patent was a “Design Patent”, meaning that he was granted exclusive rights to manufacture a shooting glove of the ornamental design illustrated in the Design Patent, Des. 107,294.

His patent claim is for "The ornamental design for an Archer's shooting glove as shown".

Despite what some enthusiastic corporate advertising personal wrote in more than one Bear Archery Catalog, Fred’s Design Patent was not the invention of the Archer’s Shooting Glove…

 

 

[Tox Collector]

Cliff, I assume that Abner Sheperdson was the bowyer?  Tox Collector

[Tox Collector]

A thread on The Archers Company sounds good.  I am sure that Liquid Amber can contribute to the thread as well.  I agree with you that the shooting glove had to exist well before Ascham's time -- particularly with the heavy bows being used, fingers required protection.

[TonyW]

As long as we all agree that Fred didn't invent the wheel ...

[Tox Collector]

Fred may have -- who knows for sure?  He was an extremely inventive guy!

[Wade Phillips]

Tony - You always come up with the best one liners ever.

Yes, as you say...

"As long as we all agree that Fred didn't invent the wheel ..."

Especially not the wheel in use with the bow...

[jester]

Originally posted by Tox Collector:
I agree with you that the shooting glove had to exist well before Ascham's time -- particularly with the heavy bows being used, fingers required protection.

There is however no medieval illustration showing archers other than bare-handed – not to my knowledge at least. The oldest found tab I know of is shown in Hugh D. H. Soar's "The Crooked Stick", p. 129, and dated to around 1500 AD.
Of course medieval illustration cannot be taken as renderings of reality, and absence of evidence is no evidence of absence, but still …

[Tox Collector]

You make a good point.  One website that I researched noted that although Ascham referenced shooting gloves and Anne Boleyn purchased a shooting glove (circa 1534) [the latter according to Accounts for the English royal household], shooting gloves are rarely shown in illustrations of archers at war.  

Only one illustration has been found that apparently does show something that resembles a shooting glove, and that is the Zamorra Tapestry [I am not personally familiar with this Tapestry].  The suggestion is that archers who shot the bow their entire life developed sufficient calluses to protect their fingers; and therefore, shooting gloves were used infrequently by such bowmen according to this source.  

Keep in mind that there are few sources in English that even record the details and lives of the medieval archer so it makes some sense that this detail may not have been noted.  "Certain Discourses" by Smyth [1590] provides some insights by one who saw the bow in action from a military standpoint -- I will check this book to see if there is anything on the topic.  I have some other sources as well that I will check.

Tox Collector

[Liquid Amber]

Abner Shepherdson of Melrose, Massachusetts; bowyer, fletcher, artist who's early work with take-apart bows and sights largely have gone unnoticed.  He and McMeen were tight.  

I don't have any doubts a shooting glove or finger protection was used many years ago.  If folks were already wearing clothes, foot and hand protection as a way of life, it would be a logical and easy progression to hand protection for the drawing hand.

[Wade Phillips]

Cliff - My thoughts exactly. Hand protection for both hands existed before the bow was invented. If it were freezing, would early man remove his hand protection so his hand could freeze, simply because he happened to have a bow in his hand? Early man was smarter than that.

About Sheherdson's Bows...

Did Abner E. Shepherdson's take-apart bows progress beyond the design of his simple indexed sleeve shown in his 1921 patent?

Do you have a Shepherdson take-apart bow? If so, how were they marked? Although I do not have one of Shepherdson's bows, one of my Cassius Styles bows is a take-apart that has an indexed sleeve similar to the design shown in Shepherdson's patent and made during the same period.

[Tox Collector]

I did some additional research but not as much as I would like to.  Wade and Cliff -- common sense would suggest at least for some archers that some finger protection may have been used.  

Hugh Soar does discuss this issue in his book "Secrets of the English War Bow", Yardley, PA, 2006.  On pp. 167 of his book, Hugh states: "Ascham, an archer himself, was aware of the problem some archers face when pulling back the string of a heavy draw weight bow, for painful calluses can form on fingers.  His remedy, and he advances two, is to take and split open [he uses the archaic term "spinet"] a piece of goose quill and sew it within the finger of the glove as protection.  

Alternatively, he recommends sewing a leather spacer between the fingers of the glove "which shall kepe his fingers so in sunder that they shall not holde the nocke so fast as they did."... Hugh continues on to say that men of rank may have possessed such things but "there is no evidence that the ordinary archer was so equipped.  It is unlikely that he would have been, for if he used anything at all [and evidence for any form of finger protection is lacking], then a simple piece of leather with three holes cut roughly would have sufficed.  Today we know these latter as tabs...Bowstrings were whipped - or as we would say today, served -- so, combined with hands and fingers toughened by manual work, this alone may have been sufficient safeguard."

On pp. 12 of the book "The Great Warbow" by Strickland and Hardy, Sutton Publishing, England, 2005 there is an illustration of archers drawing heavey bows.  This is from 'Sebastian's Altar" by the Meister Heilige Sippe, c. 1493.  

The artist clearly has captured a good deal of archery detail including showing the heartwood and sapwood of the yew bows depicted.  The two archers certainly appear to be using gloves on their right hands because their other hands -- their bow hands are flesh colored and that isn't the case with string hands.  

I plan to do some additional research.

[Tox Collector]

Cliff,  Was Shepardson a friend of Frentz as well?  Do you know anything about their relationship?  Tox Collector