Westley Richards Decades - the Noughties

It was quite a common practice for sportsmen to order a gun to pair with a single one already in service. Sometimes a gun by another maker was provided as a template, as was the case on page 323 with a .303 double rifle ordered by Sir John Ramsden on 26^th January 1900, the specifics of which are noted to be ‘as Woodward Gun No.5246’.

Tight deadlines were then, as now, a fact of life in the gun trade. Sir John also ordered a ‘plain or best’ double .577 with the same specifications as his .303 and wanted both delivered, along with a Mauser pistol and 1,400 rounds of various ammunition, to S.S. Lancashire, which was due to sail on February 9^th. The instructions are to ‘shoot the guns on Feb 6^th, he starts Feb 8^th’. No pressure then!

Page 346 contains an order from a very famous customer named James Sutherland, the renowned elephant hunter. The order, to be sent to his agent in ‘B.C Africa’, was taken on 15^th June 1900 and was for a ‘good, Lee Enfield .303 rifle with a trapped heel, high, flat rib, and two magazines, one for ten, the other for five rounds’.

It specifies that the rifle be engraved ‘James Sutherland’, also that a ‘good & strong sight protector for the lift-up night sight’ be fitted. The rifle supplied is No.4160 and it cost eleven pounds fifteen shillings. It is not as famous as Sutherland’s Westley Richards .577 double rifle, with single-trigger but the attribution would make it worth a premium today, especially with that name so prominently engraved on it.

Servicing overseas traders was clearly a useful part of the business. Page 366 contains an order for three ‘keeper’ quality boxlocks in 12-bore and three in 16-bore, each one cased, with accessories and shipping-cases to H&H Ltd. in Shanghai at a total cost of two hundred and eighteen pounds, fifteen shillings.

Indian maharajahs do not feature strongly in this decade but Westley Richards clearly had a solid reputation among officers in the armed forces and among the nobility. Lord William Percy ordered a pair of best double hammerless ejectors on 14^th November 1900. The entry, on page 388, notes ‘His Grace the Duke of Northumberland will pay the account’.

The orders include guns and rifles to the Shah of Persia, the Japanese ambassador and several Italian noblemen. Admirals, majors, captains, sirs and lords feature in abundance. The bulk of the orders for the decade are to be found in a Gun Order Book, now rather battered and without a spine, which runs from November 1902 to February 1908.

With Cordite only recently introduced and magazine rifles gaining popularity, the order books of the noughties naturally reflect these developments. This is also the decade in which the Explora and Fauneta shot-and ball guns gained widespread popularity.

Page 371 contains an order on 28^th June 1906 for a Mannlicher .256 calibre rifle for The Hon. E.A. Stonor of ‘27 Montagu Square London’. It specifies that it should be sighted to 500 yards and includes a sketch of the shape required for the four leaf-sights. The foresight is to have a ‘fine bead, ivory tipped’ and a ‘strong protector’.

The cost was twelve pounds, twelve shillings with an additional one pound, ten shillings for a full-length canvas case. One hundred .256 cartridges were provided at an additional cost of one pound, one shilling. Live pigeon competition shooting was a huge international sport at the time and a July 1906 order on page 380 reflects the type of gun then popular with competitors. It outlines the requirements for a Mr. Evan Shelby of 116, West Seventy-Fourth Street, New York, who was staying at the Berkeley Hotel in Pall Mall when he ordered a ‘ best quality double hammerless ejector gun for pigeon shooting’.

The specifications are quite prescriptive ‘one trigger, hand-detachable locks, square back action, checkered behind with drop points, no side-clips to action’. They continue: ‘stock straight-hand, wood must be very dark and curly’. Stock dimensions are given in detail, along with the instruction ‘ Cast-off Nil, toe not to be as prominent as usual.’

The barrels were to be ‘30 inches, steel, flat-top rib, engine-turned, chambered for 3” cartridges but coned so that he can use shorter cases if necessary’. It also specifies ‘extreme choke’ and instructs ‘do not round off muzzle ends of barrels, leave them thick there like gun made for J.G. Back’. As for weight it was to be 'not less than 7lbs 8oz’. For this, Mr. Shelby paid sixty-three pounds.

In addition he had a second set of 28” barrels with 2 ½” chambers made to interchange with the 30” ones and asked that with these fitted, the gun weigh 6lbs 14 or 15 ounces. The whole set was fitted into a best oak & leather case. The case cost four pounds four shillings and the extra barrels twelve pounds, twelve shillings. The very detailed order for this gun shows how careful competitive shots were about their guns being set-up exactly as they needed them to shoot.

The colonies of the British Empire were a good source of orders and one in February 1907, on page 462 is for a very ‘colonial-type’ rifle.

Mr. C.J. van Rooyen of Rhodesia asked for a ‘best double hammerless ejector rifle in .300 and .303 bore combined’. The right barrel was to be chambered for the .300 Sherwood and the left for ‘ordinary British Government .303 cartridge’. Sighting is specified as a standing ramp to 100 yards and folding leaves to 600.

Clearly, logistics represented an issue and notes say that the rifle must be in the customer’s hands between 15^th & 25^th April as he was leaving London for South Africa. Europe provided good hunting as well and Mr. W.G. Stewart in ‘Rumania’ ordered a ‘special grade’ (meaning cheap) double hammerless ejector ‘Explora 12-bore ball & shot gun’. The grade is confirmed by the T-prefix serial number on this order of March 1907, on page 470. The cost of this Explora was thirty-one pounds.

Two hundred ‘Explora’ lead bullets accompanied the order at a cost of three pounds, ten shillings. Then, as now, atypical orders sporadically appear in the order book. Page 475 specifies a 16-bore  ‘best hammerless ejector’ for Mr. Fred Graham of Ardencaple Castle. He specified Damascus barrels and a side-lever.

He had it made to match an existing boxlock gun (No.14791) except the new one (which cost sixty pounds) was to have hand-detachable locks. Another Explora order came from Baron M. Vecsey of Budapest, who specified a scroll back action, hand-detachable locks and one trigger. He also asked that the gun weigh 7lbs 4 1/2oz and noted that ‘absolute accuracy is essential with ball to at least 200 yards’.

For an idea of what the Explora was expected to deliver at 200 yards, the 1908 catalogue for the Explora and Fauneta models illustrates a target eight-inches square containing eight shots from the right and left barrels of an Explora 12-bore at that distance. The Editor of ‘The Field’ described it as ‘an exceptionally fine diagram’. At 300 yards, the square containing the same eight shots expanded to 11 1/2 inches.

Westley Richards claimed that the combination of the Explora and the L-T capped bullet effectively trebled the range of a shot & ball gun. Unsurprisingly, these models were very popular with overseas sportsmen. Page 524 contains an order on 7^th July 1907 from Mr. Delius, of Harewood, Yorkshire for a (then quite novel) .318 Accelerated Express magazine rifle sighted to 600 yards with five folding leaves and platina lines. He asked that the rifle be ‘as light as possible and the barrel as short as can be consistent with good shooting’.

Mr. Delius must have been going abroad to hunt as the delivery note gives the address as Southampton and the S.S. Kinfauns Castle (a mail-carrying steamer commissioned in 1899 which ferried troops to South Africa during the Boer War and then ran the England–South Africa route until 1914, when requisitioned by the Royal Navy) ‘to arrive before August 2^nd’ along with 300 rounds of .318 ammunition, 500 12-bore, No.4 shot and 500 12-bore, No.8 shot cartridges

We should observe the relatively high cost of ammunition. The order above cost ten pounds for cartridges, while the rifle cost just eighteen pounds. If 300 magazine rifle cartridges and a thousand 12-bore cartridges today were over half the price of a magazine rifle, that ammo bill would be about thirty thousand pounds rather than the nine hundred pounds it actually is. Either ammunition has got much cheaper or rifles have got much more expensive since 1907.

The noughties was a busy decade for Westley Richards, with yet another profitable decade ahead of it. Despite the Great War, that upward trajectory would continue into the 1920s as big orders from Indian princes began to multiply, thereby creating some of the finest Exhibition Grade guns and rifles the company made in its history.