doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Wanted: Information on T. Newton, West Manchester

Yet another fopar,will continue with my comments! Manchester was home to 43 gun makers dur1ng the 19th; century. They ranged in scope from the mighty Whitworth to small individual makers such as Newton,Griffiths,Edge & Gascoigne&Dyson. The Manchester makers produced some very fine guns during the 19th century as typified by Terry,s Newton hammer gun,as seen above. The distinctive lock plates are also found on guns of the same period by the Manchester makers, Griffiths, Edge and Gascoigne & Dyson.In the opinion of the late Geoffrey Boothroyd [and the writer] that the Manchester makers developed a distinctive style of their own which for a time met with considerable success. I am of the opinion that one of our current authors could produce a very interesting article on this subject.

Manchester rich folk, as you needed to be to shoot in that time, got that way as industrialists, mostly in textiles. Unfortunately, the US Waugh of No'the'n Aggresssion created a huge industrial surge in the USA post waugh. Since cotton grew here, not in the UK, it made very good financial sense to invent/import textile equipment and technology to the cotton growing areas. SOoooo, the textile industry left Manchester and moved to the USA South, never to return (does any of this sound familiar?). The Manchester Industrialists would have rather eatten ground glass than traded in London with the aristos. Unfortunately, all those Manchester gunmakers wound up "suckin' air" after the textile industry exodus. Anyway, that is my story and I'm stickin' with it --- unless one of our UK colleagues has a better one.

I live just south of Manchester so come across quite a few examples of Newton guns as well as others from that area. I sold a Newton fairly recently that was a gun converted from pin-fire to central fire and aslo recentlu sold a Thomas Conway of Manchester hammer gun. I would guess that yours, by the stile was made in the 1870's to early 80's, if you have details of the original proof marks I might be able to be more specific. At first glance it looks as if it might be built on a Thomas action of 1871. I see some nice Manchester made guns on my travels. The only firm still in business there from that era is T.Stensby http://www.wdlr.org.uk/stensby/ I don't know if they may have more knowledge of Newton guns. I still have a nice little double .410 hammer gun by Stensby. Some nice stuff came from both Manchester and Liverpool in the way of guns. Yours is a very nice example. Lagopus.....