Philip Fargher, 'Rifle Shooting', Rankine, Dobbie & Co., Sydney, c. 1908

Philip Fargher's 'Rifle Shooting' was the follow-on publication to his highly successful 1901 booklet, 'Hints on Rifle Shooting', for which, as he noted in the foreword to this later work, he had received 'letters of appreciation ... from all parts of Australia'.

The copy presented here is the second edition to the earlier work and although undated, a review in Adelaide's 'Advertiser' newspaper in September 1908 of this edition, published by Rankine, Dobbie & Co. seems to indicate that it had just recently become available. It could be purchased for 1 shilling 6 pence, or 2 pence more for postage. As the 'Advertiser' noted, 'Mr. Fargher has every qualification to write on such a subject, for he was the winner of the Queen's Prize in connection with the Victorian Rifle Association matches, and did good service at Bisley'.

Born on the Isle of Man in 1859, Fargher arrived in Australian in 1995 and commenced his life-long interest in marksmanship with the Bendigo militia the same year. An engineer by profession with the Melbourne Tramways Company, it was for his skilled marksmanship that Fargher was recognised within Melbourne's sports shooting community.

His involvement with rifle shooting was studded with notable highlights; his winning of the Queen's Prize in 1892 before winning both the Grand Aggregate and Victorian Rifle Association (VRA) gold medal the following year. He was selected as a team member of the Victorian shooting team at Bisley, England, in 1897, 1898 and 1902. Researchers are fortunate that Fargher's personal papers and diary from his 1897 trip are now held by the National Library of Australia, Canberra.

At the time of his death in 1916, Fargher had held the position of secretary to the VRA for a decade and was praised by his peers as 'one of the most consistent and popular marksmen in Australia ... no representative team was considered complete without him.'