First Tippler competitive flights in 1859

By Heinz H. Kaupschäfer (translated from German)

With many of our pigeon breeds the historical background has been lost in the last century. This also applies to the Tippler sport. Pigeon keeping like we do today was not possible in the early days. Here we will talk about the first competitive flight in England.

In front of me I have two issues of the English pigeon newspaper "Pigeons" from the 6th and 13th of November 1908. In there, R. Dall writes about Joe Hall, one of the pioneers of the Flying Tippler sport on the "green island" on the other side of the canal. As this is the first news ever of competitive flights with Tipplers, I'd like to report some of it.

1. Competitive flight in 1859
The family Hall comes from Macclesfield, a city who in Tippler circles is said to be the birthplace of the breed. Halls father himself already bred and flew the pigeons. The work-related move to Stockport / Congleton, where there was some progress related to the flying sport, enabled him to do a comparison flight against the pigeons of the resident Mr. Stubbs. The result: Halls pigeons won with 8 hours and 20 minutes before his rival, whose Tipplers stayed in the air for around four hours.

More flights on a private basis
Because he got a taste for it, there was another competitive flight on the 9th of July 1876 between Hall and the breeder Ball. In the pot was the - for those times horrendous - sum of 10 pounds sterling.

But the weather was not playing along this time, it was raining constantly. Hall lost with "only" 9 hours and 28 minutes. Balls pigeons won with 11 hours and 8 minutes.

A very weird competitive flight
We know of another private competition, which took place on the 5th of June 1900 and where the sum involved was even 20 pounds Sterling! The start was scheduled for 6 o'clock: Halls pigeons flew 14 hours and 26 minutes, his rivals for 13 hours and 18 minutes. Hall was declared the winner by the two neutral referees. But that was not the end! The looser accused Hall that instead of flying Tipplers he flew so-called «Sheffield Crossbreeds", which were news in those times (they came from a crossbreed of Macclesfield-Tipplers with the grounded Tumbler breeds). After that the judges were forced to look at the pigeons again and confirmed that the three flown pigeons were real flying Tipplers. Such things happened even in those times...

Organized competitive flight of the AETS
Meanwhile a club was founded in England, the "All England Tippler & Tumbler Society" (AETS). There, on the 4th of August 1902, Hall and his pigeons managed 13 hours and 32 minutes and won the cup. On the 4th of August 1903 a breeder from Sheffield named Beech won in the AETS with 14 hours and 4 minutes. But on the 2nd of August 1904 Hall won again with his junior Tipplers and put up a world record at the same time (14 hours and 40 minutes). When you read it like this it seems like Hall alone knew how to produce extraordinary results with young pigeons. But he was also the first breeder ever who managed to officially fly old Tipplers for over 17 hours. This was during the Champion competition flight, where his team managed 17 hours and 10 minutes. This meant the world record for old Tipplers!

Hall-Pigeons continue to live on our continent. Consecutive breedings of these exceedingly good flying pigeons are nowadays still in our pigeonries.

Walter Stettler CH Binningen www.flugtippler.ch

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