Richard Barnett (sport shooter)

Sir Richard Whieldon Barnett (6 December 1863 – 17 October 1930) was an Irish sport shooter who competed for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in the 1908 Summer Olympics, and at the age of 15 he was the Irish rifle champion.

He was also Irish Chess Champion from 1886 to 1889. At Oxford he was president of the Oxford University Chess Club, competing in a number of varsity matches against Cambridge in the 1880s. In 1908 he finished fourth in the 1000 yard free rifle competition.

After the first World War he served as a Conservative & Unionist MP for St Pancras South West in the House of Commons, where he was a member of the chess circle and hosted World Chess Champion José Raúl Capablanca on a visit to the UK in 1919.^[1][2] His obituary was in the Belfast Newsletter of 18 October 1930.

From his boyhood days he took a keen interest in markmanship, and at the age of 15 he was the Irish rifle champion. He was one of the twelve representatives of the UK at the Olympic Games of 1908, and finished fourth, winning the Diploma of Merit for shooting at 1000 yards. Just as in markmanship so in chess, Sir Richard Barnett distinguished himself in his early boyhood, achieving the remarkable record of being champion chess player of Ulster at the age of twelve, and of Ireland from 1886 to 1889.

Richard Barnett married a lady from Devon in 1894, her name was Maud Emmeline Cawsey, daughter of William and Claudine Cawsey. After checking the census it appears they had no children, but around 1896 they took in their niece Ethel Fifield, as Maud's sister Arabella had died in 1896. Ethel stayed with Richard and Maud for at least ten years, she was in her late twenties when she married. Richard's wife died in 1920 and both her and Richard have a memorial plague in honor of them in a church in St Pancras where they lived.

The British Journal of Nursing^[3] also contained an item about his memorial.

External links

• list of Irish shooters

References