British Gunmakers by Nigel Brown

British Gunmakers by Nigel Brown

British Gunmakers by Nigel Brown. British Gunmakers, by Nigel Brown, published by Quiller Press, Volume One – London, published 2004, Volume Two – Birmingham, Scotland and the Regions, published 2005, and Volume Three – Index, published 2009.

This three volume set lays out the history of London gunmakers and specialist trade workers through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book contains an alphabetical listing of the businesses and individuals with their dates and addresses. Separate listings identify the brand names used by them and the patents they registered along with additional information on proof marks. Includes individual histories of businesses with details of the serial number records. An invaluable and definitive reference for any collector, shooting enthusiast, historian or gunmaker.

Volume 3 enlarges on such factual information set out in Volumes 1 and 2 but it also includes unique record research on around 120 additional Birmingham, Scottish and regional gunmaking firms and over seventy additional London ones, quite apart from updating many existing records in both volumes. This is the result of years of study setting out, for the first time in many cases, such knowledge as has been gleaned of the record systems of many long defunct gunmakers as well as additional surviving record systems not available to the author when the previous Volumes went to press. It also takes the opportunity to fill in inter alia gaps not covered in Volumes 1 and 2 about the powder and ammunition companies and in addition starts to record something of the UK’s air weapon industry that has grown up over the last few decades and now leads the world.