John Henry Walsh FRCS (21 October 1810 – 12 February 1888) was an English sports writer born in Hackney, London who wrote under the pseudonym "Stonehenge."
Among his numerous books published under the name of "Stonehenge" are:[1] He was editor of The Field, a magazine whose target audience was the upper class of English society, and those who loved to shoot, fish, and hunt.
It was never a pure hunting magazine, but was always concerned with social status; its influence led to the creation of the Kennel Club.
For some time, he was surgeon at the Ophthalmic Institution and lectured on surgery and descriptive anatomy at the Aldersgate School of Medicine.
He loved sports; he rode well to hounds, kept greyhounds and entered them at coursing meetings, and trained his own pointers and setters.
He soon instituted the first Field trial of guns and rifles, in April 1858 in the Ashburnham grounds at Chelsea, adjacent to the famous Cremorne Gardens.
In 1875, the value of the choke-bore system received further elucidation in another trial at the All England Croquet Club grounds at Wimbledon, of which Walsh was an active promoter.
Other experiments led to his invention of the 'Field' force gauge, which gave more reliable results than the paper pads previously in use.
Subsequently, Walsh organised trials to ascertain the cause of so many breakages in guns, the testing of powders by the lead cylinder method, the various effects of nitro compounds, and the strain on the barrels of small bores.
His comments on proof powder in The Field, where he stated that the powder used in testing gun-barrels was fifty per cent below the proof required, led to an action, the Birmingham Proof-house Guardians v. Walsh On technical grounds, a verdict was decided against Walsh with damages of forty shillings (The Times, 3 July - 10 August 1885).
As soon as the trial was over, he approached the Guardians with proposals for providing security for sportsmen, and ultimately succeeded in obtaining some useful changes.
He was heavily involved with the early dog shows and field trials, and was on the committee of the Kennel Club.