Nigel Brown also lists a Reuben Hambling at 112, North Street, Brighton, Sussex in 1858. Looks like he may have moved. There are other Hamblings listed in Norfolk and Devon.
Manchester had quite a thriving gun making history. Nice and interesting example. Lagopus.....
Thank you. The Manchester gunmakers are pretty well documented, which is why this gun is peculiar. The full addresss on the rib seems to discount the idea of an ironmongers gun, or a spuriously named gun (of all the choices for that, why would someone chose the name Hambling?). As you point out, no Hamblings are recorded as gunmakers in Manchester in any of the well researched reference books. And if youre putting together a Birmingham trade gun for local sale, why use an obscure patent action, when a Jones under-lever will do? And make it as a bar-in-wood gun, no less? The gun has no serial number.
The Hambling gunmaking clan did spread out, but mostly in the south of Britain. Despite the number of them, I have never encountered any other Hambling guns, so I dont know how they might be marked. It is only through genealogies and incidental business records that it is possible to place Reuben Hambling in Bexley St., Salford in 1865-1869? (as well as Brighton (1859), St. Botolph without Aldergate (1861), Birmingham (1865), London (1881-1885), Ashford (1891), and Canterbury (1892, where he died), as well as his early years (1833-1851+) in Blackawton). One known Hambling gunmaking business address in Salford is Bexley Street (due to a gunpowder accident reported in the newspaper). While the guns rib inscription is now faint, it can only be read as New Bailey St., a valid Salford address, which furthers the mystery!
The gun has seen hard use, the action spring is now weak, and the rib is somewhat detached at the breech end. It would have been quite a handsome gun in its prime, a standout from the typical pinfire designs of the day.
