After an educational exchange with knowledgeable contributors to this board such as LeFusil, I understand that while there is prima facie evidence that Reilly made guns at both his Oxford Street addresses from 1847 to 1912, there would be interest in running this down further. Here is what I'm working on:

1) What happened to Reilly's gun making machines, lathes, barrel borers, engraving tools, etc. A lot of the guns at the time are hand made but he needed the big machines too, if he were building complete actions from scrap rather than buying them under patent, especially since he was stamping "Reilly" onto specific parts of actions.

...a. I'll start looking to see what was sold when Reilly declared bankruptcy on 06 Jun 1912. The liquidator G. Watkinson Roberts might have published a list of items somewhere.



However, there are two factors which might effect the bankruptcy sale:

-- Reilly closed 16 New Oxford Street in 1898 and I speculated at that time sold the workshop there...part of downsizing due to dramatically decreasing orders. When they moved they must have sold the equipment there. I do not know who was running the company at the time. Will search the London papers for sales of gun making items from that year.

-- They moved from 277 (location of the shooting gallery) to 295 in 1903. Bert Reilly, now 26 years old, was the manager. They also must have had to sell equipment for the move. 295 was considerably smaller; they only serial numbered about another 250 guns in the 9 years after they closed 277 before bankruptcy. So again machines at 277 must have been sold off.
. . . .-- I'll see if I can dig up some sales data from that building as well. I do know from labels in cases, etc., that they did do maintenance work on older Reilly's while at 295....one gun re-barreled - other serial numbered guns from the 1880's-90's came up with crossed out 277 addresses on the cases.

In addition, I'm trying to determine who worked for Reilly I have the names of two shop managers, one from 1861 and one from 1895. I'll be looking at British census data to see if anyone in that area of London actually identified themselves as a Reilly employee (at the time you were only obligated to give "occupation.")

1861 - John Baker who took out a patent for Reilly: - there are a lot of John Bakers in London including one gun maker wh 20 years later was up in Birmingham.


1895 - James Curtis, who testified at a trial involving an Irish terrorist who may have bought a revolver from Reilly.
13 Sep 1895 "Kilburn Times"


There are some others but only identified by last name. Research continues.

Last edited by Argo44; 01/20/19 07:45 PM.
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