Numbering amongst the antique books on the shelves at Westley Richards in Birmingham is a well-worn volume bearing a red label on the front cover with the name ‘Mr. Westley Richards’. An internal paper label shows it to have been purchased from J. Kirton’s General Stationery Warehouse in Cavendish Square, London.
The first page of the book is headed ‘Account of Stock’ and the pages following are packed with accounts of monies paid for guns and other items and services. It also informs the modern reader of the price of such goods in the mid and late 1830s (this book begins in 1835 and ends in 1839) as well as naming some of the firm’s customers, many of whom were interesting and important historical figures.
The book’s first entries coincide with Charles Darwin’s arrival in the Galapagos Islands on HMS Beagle. King William IV was still on the throne but would be succeeded by his young niece, Princess Alexandrina Victoria, just two years later, in 1837.
When the clerk began writing his first entries, (perhaps it was Mr. Westley Richards himself), the founder was very much still alive and active. He would then have been forty-five years old, having started his business in 1812, at the age of just twenty-two.
His eldest son, Westley Richards, took over the business in 1840, the year after this book closed. The pages are in far better condition than the cover, which is split and disintegrating. The carefully handwritten pen and ink script meticulously records the transactions by day, month and year.
Prices are, of course, in the pre-decimal system of pounds, shillings and pence (£. s. d.). One pound was made up of twenty shillings (or 240 pence). One shilling equalled twelve pence. Among early gun sales, we can see gun No.2954 listed as a ‘best double copper-cap gun, 16-bore, with patent touch holes in mahogany case’. This sold for £29. 13s. 6d. A pair of copper-cap swivel-rod holster pistols in 16-bore cost eight pounds.
Gunsmithing work was carried out alongside new manufacture. For example the restocking of a single gun for a Mr. Coulson cost him £3 10s. 0d. The refurbishment of a used gun, described as ‘making double gun as new, browning barrels etc’ cost two pounds.
Inflation during the 1830s was modest, and there was even some deflation. The currency was tied to the Gold Standard, so fluctuations were somewhat tempered. For general comparison purposes, £100 in 1830 had roughly the purchasing power of £15,000 today. That equivalence highlights the accelerating cost of best sporting guns. A best double shotgun in 1835, priced at just under thirty pounds, would be, in today’s money, £5,000. In reality, a new Westley Richards best double shotgun in 2026 costs around £125,000. So, a modern gun is many times the cost of its 1835 equivalent in real terms.
The British Empire in the 1830s was transitioning from a mercantile empire into an imperial superpower and Britain’s navy was increasingly involved in anti-slavery patrols, focused on stopping the slave trade from West Africa, following Britain’s passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833.
Among notable customers in the pages can be seen: The Earl of Hillsborough, Lord Grosvenor, Lord Lincoln, Viscount Exmouth, Lord Elcho, Lord FitzClarence, Sir Philip Sydney, Sir John Cathcart, Lord Paulett, Hon. Thomas Dundas, Sir John Nelthorpe, Marquis of Westminster, Lord Beauchamp, Sir William Payne-Gallway, The Earl of Erroll, Lord Dunsany, Hon. John Dundas, Lord Brabazon, Lord Earlsport, Lord Lisburn, Lord Loftus, Barclay Brothers (bankers), Earl of Longford, Col. Cosmo Duff-Gordon, Lord Beresford, Hon. Colin Lowther, Marquis of Waterford, Duke of Richmond, Baron Bentinck, Marquis of Ely, Lord George Paget and Lord Bury. As might be expected, the customers consist disproportionately of men with titles, military rank or notable in the professions.
Orders are dominated by best double guns, with copper-cap ignition. There is frequent mention of ‘patent touch holes’ in the specifications. These were patented by Westley Richards in 1831 and praised in print by the influential Col. Peter Hawker in 1836. This transition period between old-fashioned flintlocks and modern breech-loaders saw a great deal of innovation in a relatively short period of time.
The Westley Richards patent touch-hole protected the priming charge from moisture and directed smoke and flash outward. It was clearly very popular and encouraged sales, as sportsmen demanded innovative improvements as soon as they arrived on the market. Not all guns were ‘best’ quality. Guns described as ‘plain’ cost sixteen pounds, rather than thirty and were equally serviceable. A plain single barrel gun was just nine pounds and twelve shillings. Flintlock guns remained in service and came into the firm for repair and alteration. A. Col. Bridgman had a pair of his flint duelling pistols cleaned and fitted with a new hammer spring at a cost of £1. 5s. 0d. in September 1837.
Cases listed are often noted as being made of mahogany (imported from Cuba and Honduras), rather than native oak. The cost of such a case was around five pounds. An oak case was considerably cheaper at one pound eighteen shillings, or three pounds ten shillings for a double case. The requisites of sport are also listed, such as 30,000 copper caps at fifteen pounds, and 8,000 primers at eight pounds. Choice of bore size was fairly evenly split between 12-bore, 16-bore and 14-bore. Single barrel guns were still quite popular and cost £17. 12s. 6d. in best quality.
Then, as now, customers were inclined to come to their gunmaker with odd requests. One such in January 1839 was to have a pair of locks and barrels ‘made into a gun, bored and shot etc’, which was done for six pounds and ten shillings. By 1839, the price of a cased best double gun had risen modestly to an even thirty pounds, for which price you could then buy a third of a Landau carriage or a third of a good carriage horse with which to pull it.
If we consider a bespoke carriage and a pair of matched horses, at £300, as the 1839 equivalent of a £170,000 Bentley Bentayga today, a best gun should cost a third of the price of the car, which is £56,666. It is, in fact, over £100,000 plus VAT. Sporting guns, then, were a significant purchase for the 1830s upper-middle-class Englishman but relatively less so than is the case today.
These old books continue to hold the stories of Westley Richards, their wares and their customers for posterity. We are fortunate so many have survived all these years.
The Explora Blog is the world’s premier online journal for field sports enthusiasts, outdoor adventurers, conservationists and admirers of bespoke gunmaking, fine leather goods and timeless safari clothes. Each month Westley Richards publishes up to 8 blog posts on a range of topics with an avid readership totalling 500,000+ page views per year.
Blog post topics include: Finished custom rifles and bespoke guns leaving the Westley Richards factory; examples of heritage firearms with unique designs and celebrated owners like James Sutherland and Frederick Courteney Selous; the latest from the company pre-owned guns and rifles collection; interviews with the makers from the gun and leather factory; new season safari wear and country clothing; recent additions to our luxury travel bags and sporting leather goods range; time well spent out in the field; latest news in the sporting world; and key international conservation stories.
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