Old Fashioned Terminology

[tjp28blue 0]

Hello,

 

I have just been reading some old school records from 1912. It appears that truancy became something of a problem in the early autumn each year when with boys would take time off to go 'stopping'. I believe this is an old fashioned hunting and shooting term. I would be grateful if anyone could tell me what it means and anything about this practice in 1912.

 

Many thanks

 

tjp

[Born Hunter 17,974]

It's a hunting term more than a shooting term, though the two worlds are closely linked, especially back in those days.

 

The evening before a fox hunt meet lads would go out and fill in all known badger setts and fox earths in that bit of country to prevent the hunted fox going to ground. It just involves shovelling loose earth into the holes to block them or "stop" them. Any residents can very easily dig them open again.

 

Of course it doesn't happen any more because of the law on fox hunting but when it was legal it would have been a bit of a ball ache of a job so I imagine a bit of child labour was ideal.

[DIDO.1 22,866]

I would say the term is more to do with shooting than hunting....I know what you mean about earth stopping but this wouldnt have been a job for a boy...it was more a job done in the night by knowledgeable old men, keepers and people employed by a pack.

 

Young lads would have been given the job on a shoot day. In the days of the big driven shoots men and boys would have been 'on stop' all morning from first light to keep birds in a drive...many lit fires and spent most of day in one place until it was time for that drive. There may have been only 2-3 drives in a day with thousands of birds and keeping birds in the wood would have an important task.

[Born Hunter 17,974]

You're absolutely right about shooting. f**k knows how I overlooked that one. Using stops is common today, never mind years ago.

 

But come on, stopping up for a hunt ain't rocket science.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Born Hunter

[neil cooney 10,416]

Interesting subject. IMO it would have said "earth stopping" if referring to a hunt. Masters used to send a message to their earth stoppers the day before stating weather they wanted stopping in or stopping out, meaning the stopping would be done at night or the morning of the hunt.

 

It's very interesting how the school boys would go missing from school to go stopping.

I was involved for several years with the oldest open coursing club in Ireland. The book we kept our records in goes back to the 20s.

In it it says that in the 40s the Headmaster of the local primary school used to allow the children have a day off to go beating for the meeting.

Better times indeed.

[Leeview 792]

Why would it be a problem in early autumn? could it not just refer to stopping away from school?

Y.I.S Leeview

[tjp28blue 0]

Hello,

 

Thanks everyone for your excellent replies. I think it is more than just stopping away from school because it is marked in the school record as stopping, rather than just absent. It only begins to be mentioned in autumn of the school year so I thought that it must be related to the start of the shooting or hunting seasons. We also live close to two large estates which do a lot of shooting and there is a hunt close by.

 

Regards,

 

tjp