doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Perrins & Burke, South Africa

Has anyone out there any information on a gun dealer by the name of Perrins & Burke of Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape, South Africa
We know they were in business around 1907 – 1908.
We are particularly interested to know if the ‘Perrins’ of the partnership is a relative of the Perrins gun makers of Worcester or Windsor. It is possible he is a son or grandson of one of these makers.
My interest is that we have a Perrins Owners Club and we know of guns from this firm in South Africa, so it is not beyond the realms of possibilities that a son moved out there to continue the business in fresh fields.
The Perrins owners club web site is
http://www.perrins-gunmaker-of-worcester.org.uk/
and I can be contacted directly through the link or by PM or on this forum.
Look forward to hearing from anyone with information.
JC

From the IGC:

George F Perrins
103 Rupert Street
Birmingham

62 Main Street
Port Elizabeth

Born 1827, son of John and Sarah Perrins, and brother of Henry and John Perrins (also gun barrel filers).

George Perrins bought the business of George Kynoch & Co in 1891 on Kynoch's death, and in 1894 bought the business of A Halt in Johannesburg.

The firm closed in 1900 at the outbreak of the Boer War, but it appears they later commenced in business again. In about 1920 the firm traded as G F Perrins & Co Ltd in Johannesburg and Pretoria (imported cartridges from Trent & Co of Grimsby, UK).

Pete

Pete
Thanks for the quick reply. I can now do a bit more research and see how it all slots together and I will put the findings on this forum. It's amazing how bits of information can add up together. A couple of us are working on the family history and will be putting a page on the site in due coarse. We are also working on the Royal family connection for another page.
Thanks again
John

John,
I believe there was also a 'Perrins' gunshop/dealers in kImberley. I will reseach and revert back to you.
Charls

John,

Glad it was useful to you. I have done a bit of this in the past. My best advise is to look up the census records. They are available on-line at Ancestry.com (for a fee of course). I am sure you will gather more from many sources as time goes on.

Pete

Charls
Thanks for that. Any information is very welcome as it all adds interest to the web site.
As well as SA we know of Perrins guns in USA, Canada and New Zealand. They are nice quality guns so I guess we will probably find them wherever 'English Gentlemen' settled in the 19th century.
John

Pete
I have checked with Vaughan who is the member who is researching the genealogy side of the Perrins family.
Briefly this is the information we have on the Worcester Business.
The furthest back we have got is old Thomas Perrins (b 1768 in Kidderminster) who was the father of Thomas (Windsor) and John snr (founder of Worcester business)

John Perrins senr founded the business in Worcester in 1831.
His elder brother Thomas ran the Windsor business and supplied guns to royalty at that time.

John Perrins snr had a son - John Jnr., worked with him but he died young, only a year from his father – unmarried.

Henry, a younger brother of John Jnr., carried on and expanded the business. He sold the business to HE Pollard in 1892 who had married Amy, Henry’s eldest daughter.

John Senior was married to Hannah and had 6 children.
John 1823
William 1826
Edward 1829
Henry 1832
James1834
Margaret 1836

John Perrins snr died in 1862 aged 66 and his only wife Hannah died in 1881 aged 84 years.
Henry Perrins first wife Amy died (not certain of the date) and he then married Mary - Henry died in 1908 and Mary in 1920.

It's a good bet that George Perrins was a cousin of the Worcester Perrins - it's just a matter of discovering the link. Was George perhaps a grandson of old Thomas Perrins? They certainly had gun making in the blood.

The names Thomas, Henry and John appear to be fairly common around that time so may be George was the product of another branch of the Perrins family between a different John and a Sarah who also had children by the name of John and Henry, although this does seem somewhat of a coincident.

We have photographed the present 59 Broad Street premises, which are largely unchanged, except they are now the Halifax building society.
We have visited 6 St Georges square where Henry retired to, but still carried on working as we have one gun with this address.
Next week we are visiting the Mealcheapen St premises, now an opticians and the grave of John and Hannah.

If you can see any connections with any of the family we know about that would be great and when time allows Vaughan is going to investigate the relationship further.

John