Edward   Amphlett’s   Gamebook

From the 1870s onwards the Muckross Estate was heavily mortgaged to the Standard Life Assurance Company of Scotland. Major Henry Arthur Herbert (1840-1901) spent much of the 1880s and 1890s in America and Canada, following his divorce from his wife, Emily Keane, in 1882. The Muckross Estate appears to have been regularly let out for its hunting and shooting during that period of time.
Edward Amphlett (1824 -1887) from Staffordshire was a retired Captain of the Royal Scots Greys, as well as a Justice of the Peace. His gamebook, which is available to view below, documents Edward’s deerstalking and salmon fishing activities from 1852 to 1887, most of which took place in Scotland. However, it also indicates that he rented the Muckross Estate for seven shooting seasons from 1878 to early 1886.

The gamebook consists of a landscape, leather-bound volume, which runs to about 120 pages. It records Edward’s shooting activities at Muckross, usually from August of one year to January, or early February, of the next. It is an important document as it provides an insight into the wildlife and game found on the Muckross Estate during the late 19th century.

Edward’s two children from his first marriage, Helen (1852-1906) known as Nell, and Edward (1853-1938), known as Ned, also spent time at Muckross. Indeed, Ned is frequently mentioned in the gamebook. Further information relating to Edward’s family, in particular Nell, is available in issue 20 of the Muckross Newsletter here

Andrew Stainer of Bath, a descendant of Edward’s daughter Nell, provided us with facsimiles of some pages from the gamebook in 2010. In July 2022 Andrew and his family decided to donate the original gamebook to the Trustees of Muckross House, for which we are very grateful.

We were also delighted, in January 2020, to receive a donation of the above portrait of Edward Amphlett from Gareth Stainer of Essex. Gareth is Andrew’s a cousin and yet another of Edward’s descendants.