Mostly courtesy of Steve Helsley
William Deakin and John Bagnall Johnson - British patent 647 of March 3rd, 1866. Patent Punched Steel Tube Company - Albion Works - West Bromwich.
"Metallurgy of Steel", 1905
http://books.google.com/books?id=RaF9AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA512&lpg As early as 1866, Messrs Deakin & Johnson, of Bilston, were making weldless rifle barrels from a steel block about 1 inches diameter and 8 inches long, by punching a hole from each end under a steam hammer, and then rolling the blank presumably in the same way as weldless tubes are now rolled in the process of "rolling off".
