Neither a good shield nor a good shovel: The Hughes Shield Shovel
April 8, 2024 10:29 AM Subscribe
The MacAdam Shield Shovel, also known as the Hughes Shovel, was designed and patented by Sam Hughes, the Canadian minister for the Department of Militia and Defence in 1913, to be staked in the ground for alternate use as cover. It was thicker and heavier than normal spades but failed to stop even small caliber bullets. It also had a large sight hole in the shovel blade for a rifle to poke through, making it a poor shovel. In 1914, 25,000 shield-shovels were ordered and shipped to Europe for use by the 1st Canadian Division, and then later scrapped. Sam Hughes had a string of failed inventions: "Hughes equated masculinity with toughness, and argued that militia service would toughen up Canadian men who might otherwise go soft living in an urban environment full of labor-saving devices."
"and this led to the colourful military term fuckin hughesless in referring to the janky low-quality shit assigned to men in the field on a constant basis, The End"
posted by elkevelvet at 11:14 AM on April 8 [3 favorites]
posted by elkevelvet at 11:14 AM on April 8 [3 favorites]
Christ, what an asshole:
"Hughes liked to see himself as embodying the Victorian values of hard work, self discipline, strength and manliness.[5]"
"In his first editorial, Hughes accused the Roman Catholic Church of being behind the smallpox epidemic that was ravaging Montreal at the time and called French-Canadians "little better than brutes".[9]"
"The Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, often commented that Hughes's letters to him were "voluminous" and sometimes "impertinent" as he demanded patronage jobs for local Tories.[11]"
"Hughes was sued for libel, there was an arson attempt against the Victoria Warder and was at least one assassination attempt against him when he was shot at while leaving his newspaper office.[15]"
"The combative Hughes enjoyed brawling with Irish Catholic immigrants on trips to Toronto.[4]"
"As the editor of the Victoria Warder, Hughes often attacked "Romanists" as he called Catholics. For an example in an editorial on 4 October 1889 he accused the "Romanists" of Lindsay of being "a disloyal murder-planning society".[19]"
"In January 1894, Hughes was involved in a brawl on Lindsay's main street with a Roman Catholic blacksmith named Richard Kylie, which led him to being convicted of assault and fined $500.[24] Despite expectations that the assault conviction would cause him to lose his seat, in the 1896 election, Hughes kept his seat.[25]"
"The more that the British Army rejected the Ross rifle as unsuitable, the more it persuaded Hughes of its superiority, though Morton noted that the British objections to the Ross rifle were sound as it was a hunting rifle that overheated after rapid firing and was too easily jammed by dirt.[49]"
And all that is before we get to the "Controversy" section of his Wikipedia article.
posted by AlSweigart at 11:17 AM on April 8 [13 favorites]
"Hughes liked to see himself as embodying the Victorian values of hard work, self discipline, strength and manliness.[5]"
"In his first editorial, Hughes accused the Roman Catholic Church of being behind the smallpox epidemic that was ravaging Montreal at the time and called French-Canadians "little better than brutes".[9]"
"The Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, often commented that Hughes's letters to him were "voluminous" and sometimes "impertinent" as he demanded patronage jobs for local Tories.[11]"
"Hughes was sued for libel, there was an arson attempt against the Victoria Warder and was at least one assassination attempt against him when he was shot at while leaving his newspaper office.[15]"
"The combative Hughes enjoyed brawling with Irish Catholic immigrants on trips to Toronto.[4]"
"As the editor of the Victoria Warder, Hughes often attacked "Romanists" as he called Catholics. For an example in an editorial on 4 October 1889 he accused the "Romanists" of Lindsay of being "a disloyal murder-planning society".[19]"
"In January 1894, Hughes was involved in a brawl on Lindsay's main street with a Roman Catholic blacksmith named Richard Kylie, which led him to being convicted of assault and fined $500.[24] Despite expectations that the assault conviction would cause him to lose his seat, in the 1896 election, Hughes kept his seat.[25]"
"The more that the British Army rejected the Ross rifle as unsuitable, the more it persuaded Hughes of its superiority, though Morton noted that the British objections to the Ross rifle were sound as it was a hunting rifle that overheated after rapid firing and was too easily jammed by dirt.[49]"
And all that is before we get to the "Controversy" section of his Wikipedia article.
posted by AlSweigart at 11:17 AM on April 8 [13 favorites]
Neither a good inventor, nor a good person.
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:21 AM on April 8 [3 favorites]
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:21 AM on April 8 [3 favorites]
Well, also it was possible to assemble the Ross Rifle in such a way that it would fire but also shoot the bolt back into the firer’s skull, which is… not optimal for a rifle. I also dispute that it would make you heartier.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:43 AM on April 8 [7 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:43 AM on April 8 [7 favorites]
Why does he sound like a Simpsons character?
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 12:18 PM on April 8 [4 favorites]
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 12:18 PM on April 8 [4 favorites]
Jesus Christ, that Wikipedia article reads like somebody trained an AI on Behind the Bastards scripts.
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 12:24 PM on April 8 [8 favorites]
posted by Phobos the Space Potato at 12:24 PM on April 8 [8 favorites]
I have to assume Doug Ford would operate exactly the same if he was made a war time defense minister under the seemingly inevitable Poilievre government.
posted by Dalekdad at 1:16 PM on April 8 [6 favorites]
posted by Dalekdad at 1:16 PM on April 8 [6 favorites]
Military shovels previously.
I actually have one of these Chinese entrenching tools and it's a surprisingly nice bit of kit.
posted by St. Oops at 1:32 PM on April 8
I actually have one of these Chinese entrenching tools and it's a surprisingly nice bit of kit.
posted by St. Oops at 1:32 PM on April 8
Hughes was an asshole, but I have to admit this makes him seem cooler than he probably really was:
'On his deathbed, a Methodist minister came to offer solace, only to be told by the ever combative Hughes: "Don't you bother about me. Pretty soon I'll be sitting on the right hand of God and I'll be able to arrange things all right enough."'
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:21 PM on April 8 [5 favorites]
'On his deathbed, a Methodist minister came to offer solace, only to be told by the ever combative Hughes: "Don't you bother about me. Pretty soon I'll be sitting on the right hand of God and I'll be able to arrange things all right enough."'
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:21 PM on April 8 [5 favorites]
Skeptical General is skeptical.
That's Hughes himself, so presumably that's his exuberant, victorious face.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 3:52 PM on April 8
That's Hughes himself, so presumably that's his exuberant, victorious face.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 3:52 PM on April 8
When Hughes claimed "I am never wrong", Byng replied "What a damn dull life you must have had, Minister!"
delving byngwards into wikipedia:
At Eton Byng first received the nickname "Bungo"—to distinguish him from his elder brothers "Byngo" and "Bango"—but his time at the college was undistinguished, and he received poor reports; indicative of his attitude towards academics, he once traded his Latin grammar book and his brother Lionel's best trousers to a hawker for a pair of ferrets and a pineapple.
posted by are-coral-made at 4:55 AM on April 9 [5 favorites]
delving byngwards into wikipedia:
At Eton Byng first received the nickname "Bungo"—to distinguish him from his elder brothers "Byngo" and "Bango"—but his time at the college was undistinguished, and he received poor reports; indicative of his attitude towards academics, he once traded his Latin grammar book and his brother Lionel's best trousers to a hawker for a pair of ferrets and a pineapple.
posted by are-coral-made at 4:55 AM on April 9 [5 favorites]
^ that is a ripe juicy username for the taking, that is
I look forward to reading the comments of a_pair_of_ferrets_and_a_pineapple one day soon
posted by elkevelvet at 7:47 AM on April 9 [3 favorites]
I look forward to reading the comments of a_pair_of_ferrets_and_a_pineapple one day soon
posted by elkevelvet at 7:47 AM on April 9 [3 favorites]
Wow, Hughes sounds like the paradigm for White Men Failing Up.
posted by the sobsister at 1:06 PM on April 9
posted by the sobsister at 1:06 PM on April 9
Christ, what an arsehole.
I feel like he is the equivalent of what far-right conservatives look like today.
Military shovels previously.
I actually have one of these Chinese entrenching tools and it's a surprisingly nice bit of kit.
I'm generally of the view that a tool designed to do several tasks will do none of them well, but I really want one of those shovels!
posted by dg at 1:35 PM on April 9 [1 favorite]
I feel like he is the equivalent of what far-right conservatives look like today.
Military shovels previously.
I actually have one of these Chinese entrenching tools and it's a surprisingly nice bit of kit.
I'm generally of the view that a tool designed to do several tasks will do none of them well, but I really want one of those shovels!
posted by dg at 1:35 PM on April 9 [1 favorite]
« Older Lyn Hejinian, 1941-2024 | Olivia Newton-John Television Special 1978 Newer »
posted by mhoye at 10:38 AM on April 8 [6 favorites]