Hi
I purchased a William Sumners & Son recently. It was rescued from the scrap heap and restored to its original state. I would love to get more information on the patent 20710 stamped on the fore-end. I have searched all the regular sources (CRUDINGTON & Baker, HADOKE, BROWN, etc) but to no avail.
This what I know: There is a short history about William Summers of Liverpool elsewhere detailed in Doublegun. The fact that this gun is stamped “Sumners & Son” and “48 Old Hall” alludes to the fact that the gun could have been made between 1883 and 1890. - His son was made a partner in 1883 and the company closed down in 1890.
Some other information that I managed to find: I have traced some of the original Sumners gun case labels and it seems to confirm that he worked for or was apprenticed at Williams & Powell of Liverpool - some clearly state that he worked there for thirty years: “THIRTY YEARS WITH Williams & Powell ” and “FROM Williams & Powell ”. Information about Thomas Williams & Samuel Powell of Liverpool is also sparse - some available in Nigel Brown's British Gunmakers, my thoughts were that the patent may be a T Williams or S Powell patent that William Sumners had approval to use. No luck so far to track patent 20710 to either of them.
An interesting tidbit is that in about 1890 Williams & Powell took additional premises at 48 Oldhall Street where they operated as wholesale and retail merchants and exporters. This is at the time the Sumners business closed down at 48 Oldhall.
One of the online queries suggested that this is a W.S Alves & Son patent (the WA&Son inscription above the patent number). Very little of Alves out there, I only found one reference of a British patent being awarded to a non-British Alves in Nigel’s books, but the patent number is not 20710.
Another thought may be that this is the “count” number of a patent, i.e gun number 20710 that was built with this patent, but that is unlikely as the Sumners business only existed from 1858 to 1890. The serial number of my gun is 5077, way lower than the patent number.
Any help will be much appreciated, including the proof marks, I haven’t started to decipher that yet.
Pierre
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