Master Middleton (?) preparing to Shoot for the Silver Arrow at Harrow, 5th August, 1758

Thomas Craskell (fl.1748-1758). Oil painting on canvas, Master Middleton (?) preparing to Shoot for the Silver Arrow at Harrow, 5th August, 1758 by Thomas Craskell (fl.1748-1758). Full-length portrait of a youth dressed in white and gold brocade coat with blue sash and cap holding bow and arrow, church on hill right background. Inscribed: Twelve Youngn / Gentleman / Shoot of the Silver Arrow / August 5 1758 / T. Craskell. At Harrow School a silver arrow was awarded anually as the prize at an archery competition for scholars, which took place on 4 August on the butts at Harrow-on-the-Hill. Names of the winners were reported in the London Chronicle and the Gentleman's Magazine, and in 1758 the former recorded that the silver arrow had been won by a Master Middleton. The wording of its inscription suggests that Craskell's picture may be a portrait of Middleton, a figure about whom little is as yet known. The competitors assembled at the butts, dressed in white and green and sometimes scarlet satin, ornamented with spangles in various 'fanciful devices'. A competitor who planted an arrow within any of the three concentric circles which surrounded the bull's eye was saluted with a merry blast from a band of French hunting-horns, while the archer who shot twelve times in or nearest to the centre became the victor, and bore home the silver arrow to the accompaninment of music and a procession of his schoolfellows. In the evening a ball was held in the spacious schoolroom, attended by all the best families in and around Harrow. The silver arrow was valued at £3 in 1731, and in that year six youths competed for it. The competiton was later extended to twelve scholars, and some time later the date was also changed to the first Thursday in July. In 1765, the competition was attended by a group of Iroquois Indian warriors, who were certain that they could have won the prize had they been allowed to compete. The competiton was abolished in 1772, as the event had by then become somewhat 'disorderly'. The only other known painting of someone wearing his silver arrow archer's costume is that of John Stuart, later 4th Earl and 1st Marquis of Bute (1744-1814) by Alan Ramsay, which is dated 1759. Bute Collection, Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute. A silver arrow costume is preserved at Harrow School. Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire (Accredited Museum)