doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The pinfire game gun

What causes a British gun to lack proof marks? Here is an interesting gun, as single pin-fires usually are, with a whiff of mystery about it.

Gunmakers were businessmen, their businesses had their ups and downs, and not all were successful. The economics of gun-building was complex, and wealthy patrons were not always the best at paying their bills on time. Credit was the norm, though skilled workmen had to be paid – a situation frequently leading to bankruptcies. Not sending a barrel and action to the proof house might save a few pennies, but the financial risk was great, not to say the damage to one’s reputation.

On the surface, this single-barrel pin-fire gun signed "H. W. Whaley, Strood, Kent" is a fine-looking gun that has undergone period repairs and perhaps more recent (and less skilled) repair or restorative work. The dimensions are for a person of typical stature, and the level of decoration is in keeping with a second-quality London gun or a first-quality gun of provincial make (Strood is a small town about 40km east of central London). The action is the design of Robert Adams of London, conforming to his patent No. 285 of 3 February 1860, though it is unmarked. In a letter to the weekly sporting paper The Field dated 6 February 1864, Adams stated his guns were "my own patent, made on my own premises, and under my own supervision," when challenged about the origins of his pieces, clearly establishing his 76 King William-street workshop as the builder and purveyor of his patent action, though a number of provincial makers sold guns with Adams actions, possibly under some arrangement with Adams.

I expected to find a patent mark or a patent-use number on the action, so I was surprised to find no markings of any kind on the action, not even provisional proofs. The story got darker, finding no proof marks on the barrel, only a bore stamp (15). The 28 1/16-inch barrel is of twist construction and is half-16-sided to half-8-sided towards the breech, suggesting it might have been repurposed from a muzzle-loader; the chamber is bored for the 14-gauge cartridge. Whatever marks might have been on the original barrel were gone, and once rebuilt, it was never submitted for proof to the London or Birmingham Proof House, an offence under the Gun Barrel Proof Act of 1855. Mr Adams was not unaware of the risks of avoiding the proof house: in February of 1860, he was fined £10 for having sold a rifle whose barrel lacked proofs, claiming in court he had sent it out "by mistake." He subsequently had to recall twenty rifles, to avoid paying additional fines of £20 for each one. One can assume he did not want further risk to his finances and reputation.

If Mr. Adams had not made the action, it could have been made by the provincial gun maker, or a Birmingham workshop. With no way to date the gun, it possibly was made after the Adams patent lapsed. However, there would have been far easier and more robust designs to copy by such time than the Adams. The Adams action was popular in the early 1860s; a correspondent wrote about the Adams action to The Field on 29 November 1862, stating, "I have used one for the past two seasons made by Mr Adams, of King William-street, City; whose principle, for simplicity and strength, I consider the best out." He further noted, "last season I fired from this gun 2000 shots, and over 1000 this season," giving an idea of how pin-fire guns were used in the field. He noted "another great advantage in Mr Adams's breech-loaders, which is, the absence of that mass of iron-work at the junction of the barrel and breech, which makes it as light and handy as any muzzle-loader." Adams's guns under this patent were of the bar-in-wood type, hiding a narrow action bar and the hinge beneath the woodwork. Some of his guns had a permanently attached fore-end, though this one has a removable one. Making any bar-in-wood gun is not for the faint of heart, and this is the only bar-in-wood single-barrel pin-fire gun I've ever come across, in hand or in print. It has an "island lock," and very little metalwork is apparent, giving it the look of a fine muzzle-loading gun from just about every angle.

The name and address on the gun, Henry Watson Whaley of Strood, Kent, offers another avenue to the investigation. He was born in Lynn, Norfolk, around 1805. His father, John, was born in 1781 and was a gunmaker by trade, and Henry likely apprenticed under him. John Whaley & Son traded in High Street, Strood, starting in 1831. Henry married in 1834, but happiness was replaced with trouble in the business. In June 1839, the company was dissolved, with both the father and son being sued and ending up in the notorious Marshalsea debtors prison that year. Around 1844, Henry resumed the business under his name at 46 High Street. There must have been a severe falling-out between Henry and his father, as on 13 November 1849, he took out an advertisement in the South Eastern Gazette announcing "that John Whaley, Sen., his father, has left him, and has no connection whatsoever with his business, and that the said John Whaley, Sen., is not authorized to receive any money or take orders on account of Henry Watson Whaley, from this date." Nothing much is known about the business, but Henry was recorded as a master gun maker. He did not have any children to continue the business. In the 1851 census, he is recorded as having a 15-year-old apprentice, Henry Jackson, and in the 1861 census, another 15-year-old apprentice, George B. Richardson, is listed as living with him above the workshop. Henry died in 1881, and the business, gun maker and cutler, was continued by his workman Edward Palmer until around 1894 (Palmer may have apprenticed under Henry).

Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing if Robert Adams's workshop made the action, or if it was made under licence (or not) by Henry Watson Whaley at the High Street address. From the possibly repurposed barrel, I presume it was fitted and the gun assembled by Whaley; the special-order nature of the gun might help explain why the action and barrel were never proofed, being a one-off order, perhaps made under time pressure. In any case, it is fine work and aesthetically pleasing. 14 gauge was popular then, and the single barrel and bar-in-wood construction made for a light gun at 5 pounds 10 ounces. The silver stock escutcheon is unmarked, leaving no clue as to the original owner; the gun is unnumbered, which is not unusual for a gunmaker producing a minimal number of guns in a year, and in any case, no Whaley records have survived. The period repair, an inletted pinned metal strap straddling the hand and comb, shows that someone wanted to keep the gun in the field despite a broken stock, perhaps sometime after the pin-fire system was out of fashion. Two other repairs, filler added around the lock and a possibly replaced fore-end tip of darkly-stained wood instead of horn, suggest later amateur repairs or restoration work of a lower quality, perhaps when the gun was relegated to wall-hanger status. Despite these minor blemishes, the gun is interesting, unusual, and storied. The stock is nicely figured, and the flat-top chequering is well executed. Exactly who made the gun cannot be determined; so is the reason for its construction or why it escaped the proof house. Few Whaley arms of any type (by father or son) have surfaced, so it is impossible to know if it was typical in build or quality. Perhaps something will turn up that will help fill out the story.