British Association for Shooting and Conservation

WAGBI

BASC began as the Wildfowlers Association of Great Britain and Ireland (WAGBI), founded by Stanley Duncan, an engineer and gun shop owner from Hull, in 1908. Duncan was a wildfowler and naturalist who feared for the future of wildfowling which was under threat from attempts to control the foreshore. He was also concerned to protect coastal habitats to preserve wildfowl and defend shooting from "protectionist extremists" wishing to ban the sport. The first president was Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, a notable Victorian and Edwardian sportsman and author of several books on shooting. Duncan remained the secretary of WAGBI until 1946. Duncan was also a member of the Zoological Society.

For his fowling expeditions Duncan stayed at the Black Hut on Patrington Haven on the Humber. The first WAGBI meeting was held in an hotel in Hull. The Black Hut was allegedly washed away by a big tide in 1969 but was more likely destroyed by a digger clearing the site.

Following this, WAGBI appointed its first full-time director, a former naval officer and Liverpool businessman, Commander John Anderton, who summed up his agenda as "doing one's best for something one likes – backed by the conviction that what one is doing is right." Under Anderton WAGBI focused its efforts on raising standards among wildfowlers and establishing a network of wildfowling clubs to preserve local shooting and maintain records of wildfowl populations.

In 1975 the Gamekeepers Association merged with WAGBI and in 1977, the association was a founding member of FACE, the federation for shooting sports in the European Union.

BASC

In addition, shooting had become more open with individuals pursuing several forms of the sport. The change of name to the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) was agreed at the Annual General Meeting in 1981 in recognition that shooting sports required a single representative body and that WAGBI was the most suitably placed organisation to take on the role.