I hadn't seen markings like that so I popped it through Claude along with my research. It gave me the following:
MarkingWhat it means"WESTLEY RICHARDS & Co, BIRMINGHAM"The maker's mark — but note it says Birmingham, not London.
WR ran both: Birmingham was the factory (where guns were actually built), London (New Bond Street) was the flagship retail address. Seeing "Birmingham" on the rib rather than "London" is common on trade/export-line guns rather than guns sold through the London shop."
MADE FOR FORD BROS, MARITZBURG"This is the important one — a retailer stamp. Ford Bros were a gun dealer in Pietermaritzburg (Maritzburg), Natal, South Africa. This confirms the gun wasn't sold direct by Westley Richards to an end customer — it was built for a colonial retailer, who then sold it under their own shopfront.
"FORD'S HAMMERLESS WARRIOR'S GUN"This is Ford Bros' own house trade name for the model — not a Westley Richards model name at all. Colonial dealers often did this: buy a batch of guns from a British maker, then slap on their own catchy branding to sell locally.
"Warrior's Gun" is clearly aimed at the colonial/frontier market — evocative, a bit marketing-department, very of its era."
SPECIAL QUALITY" with the △ triangle markA grade/quality designation — similar in spirit to the numbered grades we found on the T-prefix guns, but this looks like it may be Ford Bros' own grading system rather than Westley Richards' internal one, since it's stamped alongside their retail branding rather than the maker's details. Worth confirming once we can see proof marks properly.
Same maker, but built purely for the colonial export trade under someone else's shop name, rather than sold under the Westley Richards name itself. It's the gun-trade equivalent of a supermarket own-brand — still made properly, but the branding belongs to the retailer, not the factory.
If you have any other marking - happy to pop them in my research engine.
