Photograph courtesy City of Vancouver Archives
Vancouver High School Rifle Corps
This photo was taken 1912 and shows a group of the Vancouver High School Rifle
Corps posing with their rifles. They used war-surplus Garland .303 or Ross Mark 1 .303
bolt action repeaters. The concept of arming school children with military grade
weapons is definitely a thing of the past, at least in Canada. The silent tragedy
of this photograph is that these lads would soon be sent off to
the slaughter in Europe after World War One started.
The Vancouver School Board rifle corps was a long-lasting
organization. One of its largest groups was the Corps at the
Vancouver Technical High School. During the 1930s the
rifle corps was disbanded, but restarted with the advent of World War Two.
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