John Wilkes entered into a partnership with Dougall around the time of the move to Bennett St, 1883. Nigel Brown's book makes the comment that 'By the 1880s, the lockfast action, including the hammerless version, would have been obsolete with the rapid advance of the top lever hammerless ejector mechanisms available.'
His book also indicates that a Mr Keith Woodvine of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire in England is a leading expert on Dougall and supplied Brown with some idea of serial number dating: 1880 - approx serial no 3780; 1884 - approx serial no 4000; 1892 - approx serial no 4230
As has been mentioned, Dougall's London records were apparently lost, along with the early John Wilkes records, when accidentally left out for collection by the dustbin men collecting refuse! In fact, John Wilkes appears to have carried on using Dougall serial numbers when he set up his own business in 1894, following Dougall's death in 1891.
Tim
