I wonder if this post will work after so long?
I encountered Horatio Jones at the age of eight, in the first gun book I ever read: "Shooter's Delight" by Thurlow Craig, who remains my favourite author on shooting, fishing, cowboying and South American revolutions. If you have never seen it, you have a treat in store, and it is fairly common on
www.bookfinder.com and eBay.
It was Horatio Jones who sold the 13-year-old Thurlow his first .22 saloon pistol, only slightly illicit in those days, in the euphoria of the 5th August 1914. Thurlow's other purchases that morning included 500 black powder .22 Long Rifle for his rolling-block Stevens rifle, for twelve shillings and sixpence, with which he hoped to shoot Uhlans coming up the driveway. It may have been the same hour a childhood friend of mine got into the army, and became a four-year sniper on the Western Front, with the "Daily Mail" for that day wadded up in his boots to make the height.
I doubt if Jonees made any guns, which firms like his commonly bought in from the Birmingham trade, or at the bottom of the market from Belgium. But he was a genuine gunsmith. Craig describes him as shortening the barrels of his grandfather's gun which he was given, from 32in. to 26.
