A Magnificent Rigby Ritual

John Rigby & Co. has announced the completion of their move to new digs at 42 Clapham Manor Street in South London. It will be high on the Frontier Partisans itinerary if Clan Cornelius ever makes it back across the pond.

The showroom is vividly evocative of a particularly gentlemanly culture of the hunt — from Scotland to South Africa and India.

The storied company of a vintage that dates back to 1775 has instituted a ritual that strums a deep chord of Continuity & Persistence. From Field Sports Journal:

At the centre of the showroom, beneath the glass-topped table on which every new Rigby will be presented to its owner, lies the rifle Jim Corbett carried against the man-eating tigers and leopards of India. The placement is deliberate: each new gun is handed over above the one that made the firm’s reputation, a line drawn from the rifles that made Rigby’s name in India to the guns leaving the benches on the floor below.

That, my fellow Frontier Partisans, is a Beautiful Thing.