doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Joseph Thomas Hartwell

Another little known London gunmaker, whose name I only came across today. Seems he turned out some good work under his name, though he appears not to have been a trained up gunmaker.

Here is an example of one of his guns:

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And another of one of his O/U guns:

[img:left][/img]

And this is some of his background:

Name Joseph Thomas Hartwell
Address1 5a West Chapel Street, Curzon Street
City/Town London
Country United Kingdom
Trade Gun & Rifle Maker
Dates 1919-1925
Notes
Hartwell was born in 1880 in Chipping Camden, Gloucestershire. As a youngster he started work as a house boy at Campden House. (His Godparents were Viscount & Viscountess Campden, presumably because they belonged to a strong Catholic community). Eventually working for Major General Villiers Hatton, Commander-in-Chief of British forces in South China, he travelled with him to China, Hong Kong & Japan which was where he became interested in chow dogs that he later bred successfully. Taking puppies as far as the USA, he also sold one to the Queen's grandmother, the Countess of Strathmore. Both he and his wife became Crufts judges. He had three sons, Maurice and Howard (a Jesuit trainee who sadly drowned in the river Evenlode at Charlbury) by his wife, Maud whom he'd married in Hong Kong in 1905 and William, by Alice Taylor. The firm was recorded at 5a West Chapel Street from 1919 to 1923, but it seems to have taken over all of 5 West Chapel Street and traded for a couple of years longer. In 1925 J T Hartwell patented a ??? No. 248 (not in Crudgington & Baker). He seems to have tried to specialise in Over and Under shotguns. Found at auction: a 12 O/U single trigger Ser No 205, the rib signed ''Joseph Lang for J. T. Hartwell, 5 West Chapel Street, London W''; a 20 BLE Ser No 308; a BLE 12 Ser No 364; a .410 gun Ser No 391; a pair of 12 BLEs Ser Nos 1037/8; a 12 SLNE Ser No 14845 (probably a trade gun by W&S) all indicationg a small run of guns made overall. Joseph Hartwell died in Sussex in 1961.

Tim

Wow, those are a couple of beauties from a relatively unknown maker.

trw999,
Since he specialized in OU guns, I can only imagine how beautiful his SxS's would have been. Very nice work indeed!
Karl

TRW;

Do you believe he was an actual practical gunmaker?

Bv

BV, as I wrote in my opening post "though he appears not to have been a trained up gunmaker."

He seems to have had a number of other interests! And was only running his own show for six years. So although to be fair I do not know about any training he may or may not have had, my assumption is that he was capable of having some rather fine looking guns made up.

Tim