One musty old tome, now much degraded and disheveled remains on the shelf at Pritchett Street, very much looking its 202 years of age. Over two centuries; that is worth a moment to contemplate. The hand that put quill to ink pot and then carefully recorded sales details every day in the Westley Richards shop in 1824 would have done so in a world whose inhabitants could not have, in their wildest dreams, imagined the one in which we live today.
Those people thought cholera and malaria were spread by airborne ‘miasmas’, that fossils were proof of dragons and that phrenology was a scientific method for discerning intelligence.
For us, looking back, the surprisingly legible pages reveal what everyday transactions were ringing through the tills in the year that experienced ‘the great gale of 1824’, which destroyed entire coastal villages from Land’s End to Dover. Englishmen of the day had yet to learn about dinosaurs, for William Buckland was only to publish his scientific description of a Megalosaurus in that same year.
Bonaparte was just three years dead and King George IV was approaching the middle of his decade-long reign. British East India Company forces had begun the First Anglo-Burmese War against the Konbaung Dynasty in Burma and Andrew Jackson was passed over in favour of John Quincy Adams as US President, despite winning the popular vote, thereby showing that acrimonious power-transfer struggles for that office are not solely a 21st century phenomenon.
Delving into the pages of the old ledger, which runs from January 1824 to December 1831, measures fourteen inches by nine-and-a-half inches, and two-and-a-half inches thick, we can read who bought what and for how much.
It appears that this was a shop-counter ‘Day Book’ and every sale was recorded as it happened. For example, on Friday January 30th 1824, B. Leighton Esq. of Loton Park Shrewsbury bought a ‘best single copper cap gun for £13. 0s. 0d. For an oak case, 100 copper caps and other accessories, he added £3. 3s. 6d. Loton Park, built in 1712, still stands and remains in the hands of the Leighton family.
Westley Richards had only been in business for a little over two decades at this point but he was already favoured with the custom of the aristocracy and the upper echelons of the armed forces. On 23rd March, Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin spent £15. 2s. 0d. on ‘a double gun (No.27) without engraving on action and a single gun (ditto) with rifle barrel’. A case and accessories were included in the sale.
Admiral Coffin, led a colourful life and served from 1773-1839, commanding seven Royal Navy ships and fighting at the battles of Cape Henry and St. Kitts before entering politics.
The 1820s saw flint-lock guns being sold alongside the copper-cap ignition muzzle-loaders that had been gaining favour ever since Joseph Egg had first begun producing them in 1818.
By the time this ledger was closed, in 1831, Westley Richards had revolutionised percussion guns with his improvements, which culminated with the ‘Waterproof Safety Primer’ of that year. This made percussion ignition far more weather resistant and reliable.
As well as new sales, we can see that Westley Richards was converting flint-lock guns to copper-cap ignition. On 4th May 1824, for example, G. J. Smith Esq. was charged £310. 0d. for ‘new copper cap lock to single gun’, for which he also purchased 500 copper caps.
Visiting Polish noble Prince Sapieha (staying at ‘Bold, Warrington, Lancashire’) bought a double copper cap gun for £22.0s.0d on 24th May the same year, with 1000 caps to accompany it. He paid cash.
By 1826, a best double copper cap gun, as sold to J. W. Lewis on 26th July, cost £26.0s.0d. while repairs and alterations remained a keystone of the business; the company re-stocked a double flint gun for Mr. John Aston in August at a cost of £3.12s. 0d., fitted a new hammer and repaired the lock of a rifle belonging to the Earl of Aylesford for fifteen shillings, and fitted a new safety guard to a double gun for Thomas Perrott Esq., also supplying a new ram rod, in October, at a cost of five pounds.
In 1827, conversions were still in demand, with the Earl of Bradford paying four pounds, ten shillings to have his single gun ‘altered to copper caps, new locks’.
Edmund Wigley Esq. bought a ‘best double copper cap gun No. 1436’ on January 2nd 1828 for thirty one pounds ten shillings and the Duke of Bedford (of Woburn Abbey) bought a ‘best double flint gun No.1556’ in a mahogany case with accessories for thirty-three pounds in May, showing clearly how flint and percussion guns were being sold as alternatives according to the preference of the sportsman.
Military type weapons were often privately purchased by aristocratic army officers wanting better quality versions of the standard issue rifles of the day. The Earl of Plymouth (whose estate is near Ludlow in Shropshire) bought two cavalry carbines for four pounds on 27th February 1829.
Dueling pistols continued to sell, including a pair to Royal Navy Lieutenant Buchanan, who was stationed in the Cove of Cork (now Cobh). These were best copper-cap pistols, cased and they cost him twenty-four pounds. Edward Fellowes Esq. also paid twenty-four pounds, in March 1831, for his pair of best dueling pistols in a mahogany case. He also paid five pounds for a cased pair of copper-cap pocket pistols.
Duelling was, at the time, still very popular in Ireland and, though increasingly frowned upon in England, with the winner being formally adjudged a murderer, the courts were very lax in prosecuting. In 1814, one luckless British officer had been dismissed from the service for failing to demand a duel, following a public insult. The last fatal duel in England took place in 1845.
The relationship with William Bishop, who had been running Westley Richards’ London agency for a little over a decade, is clear, with numerous references to sales ‘paid by Bishop’ entered in the pages.
The local aristocracy, as might be imagined, frequented Westley Richards as his reputation grew and names like W. W. Whitmore of Dudmaston Hall, Sir George Dashwood, of Woodstock, the Earl of Stamford, the Earl of Bradford, the Earl of Aylesford, Hon. Capt. Roderick Spencer of Althorp, Sir Charles Paget and the Marquis of Anglesey appear throughout the ledger.
In 1831, orders start to show an entry of ‘extra for patent touch-holes’ and a fee of two pounds attributed to it, like gun No.2114, made on 10th August for Sir John Hamer of Ellesmere. On the same day, an order was taken for ‘fitting four patent touch-holes to double guns’ for three pounds. Also, ‘fitting our new cocks and new locks to a double gun ‘, cost one pound, five shillings.
These entries from August 10th & 11th 1831 appear to relate to improvements Westley Richards had made to percussion ignition through patent 6071 of 11th February 1831 (T-shaped percussion tube and nipple assembly, which shields the touch-hole from damp). Also, patent 7051 of 1831, which covered so-called ‘mushroom primers’. These were copper-based primers that were much more reliable and weather resistant than previous types.
Col. Peter Hawker, the famed diarist reported of the new Westley Richards gun: ‘I have tried it repeatedly and never yet knew it to fail’. The book ends in 1831 and the founder, William Westley Richards, still had another nine years in charge before handing control to his son, Westley Richards.
Company output documented over the years covered (1824-1831) chronicles the last years of flintlock, the increasing demand for copper-cap guns and, in the end, the introduction of the two Westley Richards patents which proved, indisputably, that percussion ignition was superior.
The 1830s would be the era of the percussion muzzle-loader. Fittingly, Charles Darwin embarked on HMS Beagle in December 1831 and began a journey that would change our understanding of nature and humanity irrevocably.
Times were changing; and not just for gunmakers.
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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