doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com 20 Gauge William Evans - What to do with the stock

As I mentioned in the EM Reilly line, my wife has a William Evans SxS.

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=437575&page=1

It was given to to her by General D.K. (Monty) Palit 26 years ago in New Delhi. General Palit was Sandhurst, British Indian Army during WWII, then Indian Army Major General and G-3 Chief of Operations during the Sino-Indian War and a noted military author. He passed away about 10 years ago.




It is 20 gauge, serial number 5210 made in 1901. General Palit shot 2 3/4 shells in it. I have too but am a bit loath to continue. It kicks harder than my 12 bores. General Palit said the side plates and accoutrements were silver which hardly seems possible but are certainly striking. It has a small silver oval plate in the butt with the initials "WHW". William Evans said it was ordered on Nov 22, 1900 (Thanksgiving Day that year) as part of a six gun order and delivered on July 4, 1903 (prophetic?). It was bought in 1904 by a man named Wakefield.

It has a long pull - 15 1/2 inches; a stock extension has been added at some point. The recoil pad possibly was added at that time and is now so hard it will bruise a shoulder.

So here is the question. It has an emotional appeal for wife as is. But with the long pull is not so ergonomic and the recoil pad definitely has to be changed. Color? Black or orange? (I prefer the latter). Do I fit it now to my 6'1" son who will inherit it? I.e. Keep the extension or reduce/eliminate it? I'm of half a mind to just put a recoil pad on it, maybe only 1/2" in depth and leave it at that for the future generation to figure out.

well- just to be picky - it cannot have silver sideplates because it is a boxlock

but- what a great problem to have, what a nice little gun to have received as a gift

the amount of recoil may be because you were shooting heavy 2 3/4 shells in a 2 1/2 chambered lightweight gun

Is your wife going to shoot it - then fit it for her

if she wants to give it to your son- fit it to him

Orange works for me too

I'd lose the hard pad and the extension both and then fit a new pad (orange) to fit whomever will be shooting it presently...Geo

Go with the standard English 20 bore load of 13/16th. ounce of shot and enjoy it. Ditch the inappropriate loads! 20's sometimes can be kicking little pigs. As the stock is an extension just have it removed but keep it so that it can be put back in the future. Lagopus.....

I think OHO is correct. I wouldn't mess with the stock unless you go through the motion to fit it to a specific person. Then you can decide which options to exercise. You can get recoil pads as thin as 1/2" and also could just put on a buttplate, if you need to shorten the LOP. Big heavy orange pads are not my favorite.

What you do to the rear end of the stock will also bear on the balance of the gun, so choose wisely.

Have the chambers measured and you might find the recoil lessens if you have 2-1/2" chambers and use the right ammo...I wouldn't be surprised if the chamber length is marked on the barrel flats.

Nice gun, you'll like it better if you use a 2 1/2 7/8 load in it. Try the lighter loads before you mess with the stock.

Send it to the Stock Doctor, AKA Dennis Smith. He will do wonders.
The little gun deserves a second chance.

The second photo (from underneath) seems to show plenty of cast-off, possibly because of the extra long butt stock.

You are right - the cast off is significant. You can see it in the below photograph.



Whomever added the extension of course kept the angle. Unfortunately it's set for a right hander and my wife shots left handed. I'm thinking the original pull was 13.5 inches..add a pad and it's 14" which is pretty much a "standard" pull.

General Palit got mad at her in Delhi because she was deliberately missing ducks flying down the canal and scolded her that if she didn't want to shoot her meal, she should become vegetarian. (This in UP where vegetarian was a religion and I had to leave a shikari to guard the jeep to keep locals from letting the air out of the tires.

That shotgun has way too much history behind it to alter it. Put it away and buy another William Evans.

That's very nearly a centre vision stock, and do the old beadies deceive me or are the top and bottom tangs not bent into the cast?

Tough old call if they are; major wood butchery and metal bashing in view.

Eug

Is your son right handed?

It appears to me that they are slightly bent into the cast, but only slightly. That's another problem right there if you want to alter the stock.

I think you would be money ahead buying your wife a modern O/U with no cast and having the LOP adjusted to her specifications.
The gun was a generous gift. Altering it to fit the wife might diminish that gift, particularly when you get the bill. Far from being a safe queen, that one looks to have led a useful life. It is not rare or particlarly valuable, based solely on what it is, and will not likely be worth the costs to fit it to your wife for her to do her best shooting with the gun. Sad fact.
If your son shoots, and is right handed, the gun might work out better for him. Problem with many kids is the lack of interest in the history of their parents possessions, and the gun making a one way trip to a pawn shop or consignment gun store. Still another sad fact.
We haven't heard from the actual owner of the gun (your wife) and while there are many that would simply tell you to do what you will with it, there are more than a few that won't. Or, won't be happy with the result. It won't look or feel like the generals gun after this is over.
Tread carefully. I see a lot of expense making it her gun, versus the previous owners.
I presume it fit him well.


Best,
Ted

That is a serious cast off bend on this gun. It may be hard to get it curved to the cast on side.

There must be a 'rest of the story'.

One would not gift such a gun to a left handed shooter for the purpose of actual use.

There must be more to it.

This can't be the gun involved in the deliberate missing story. A 'General' could not be so clueless.

This gun may or may not have been fitted to the general. Does he look to be a tall man with wide shoulders?

He was not the original owner. How did he obtain the gun and for what purpose?

The world wonders.

For a wondering world: General Palit was born in 1919. He was a Bengali. His father and grandfather were medical doctors - they went to British schools and England and adopted English ways especially when it came to gun sports. He opted to go into the Army and went to the Indian (Imperial) Army academy in Dera Dun about 1937. This was difficult for a Bengali at the time because the Brits had classified the various "races" in India according to war fighting proclivities. Pashtuns, Sikhs, Maharattas, Rajputs were warlike...Bengalis were relegated to medical and food. He had the temper of a bantam rooster though and through intellect and force of will (and guile - yes he was wily) climbed the ranks in the Indian Army, first under the Brits then after 15 Aug 1947 in the Indian Army. He was a Major General when the Indian army only had 4 major generals and the Chief of Staff was 3 star. His discussion of the Sino-Indian war (1962) was fascinating...(and as every Indian account of that debacle, possibly self-serving).

https://books.google.com/books/about/War_in_High_Himalaya.html?id=ukw1PuEt8IcC

as well as the Pak wars of 1948 and 1967.

He was our landlord in India. He had built a large house in Shanti Nikitin neighborhood of New Delhi, not too far from the American Embassy and rented to the Embassy - and lived on the same compound in a small town house attached to the main house.

He was not a big man - 5'9", wiry. He very fit and was still playing polo when I left - he was 72 at that time. He was divorced; his son wasn't much interested in his life. When I knew him he was extremely disciplined. He would rise at 0500, do an hour or two of yoga, he would write from 0900-1000. He came over every afternoon about 1800 for one whiskey. He also had tea with my wife regularly and adored our youngest son to whom he gave a polo pony (when the boy was 3 years old).

As he got older he became ever more the Indian nationalist and his writing took an anti-colonial Indian socialist turn. Nevertheless his military writings were deemed important and one of his books was used regularly in the US Command and General Staff College in Birmingham.

https://books.google.com/books?id=E...ahUKEwjJsJyqnqXTAhUJMyYKHYGMBWEQ6AEIIzAA

In fact because I had his ear, as Desert Storm approached I was asked by the Ambassador to discuss the upcoming offensive with him and a number of retired Indian generals, to try to get the Indian government to persuade Saddam to get out of Kuwait. The effort failed of course and India, stupidly, following its socialist/anti-Western colonialist mantra threw in with Saddam at the last minute - one of 7 countries to do so, Cuba, North Korea, Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen, Soviet Union, etc. Nice company.

He had on his wall 5 SxS's. a 12 ga. Holland & Holland; a 12 ga. Army-Navy; a 12 ga. EM Reilly hammer gun; the 20 ga. William Evans and one I'm not sure of (I think it might have been a big-bore SxS rifle). These were handed down to him by his grandfather and father. He also gave us a 500 page typewritten manuscript written by various members of his family over 70 years, much of it about hunting in India...tigers, snipe...you name it. It is an incredible British Raj type journal and an amazing insight into the mores of the early 20th century. He usually used his H&H when we hunted; I never actually saw him shoot the Wm Evans though. However, the story of the gun might be in the manuscript - I have to go through it. (or it may be it was something he acquired and didn't have a direct connection to his family?)

He gave the William Evans to her for several reasons; 1) she was beautiful; 2) she was genuinely interested in India and often accompanied him down town for shopping (she in her hat and long dresses - him in his three piece suits with people in the crowds muttering in English, "Old school"); 3) she took care of him...took up riding for instance; 4) I made a contribution to a historical scholarship fund he had set up for young Indian historians (and Indian "historians" at the time were Marxist or Nationalist and thus their intellectual contribution was suspect); 5) his son wasn't much interested in the guns. And he felt the memory of them or one of them would be better preserved with us. He visited my family in America and came to Greece later where we went up to Thermopylae and to Meteora.

I'll repost a picture of us after one of our hunting trips. And will later post a picture of her and of my son on his polo pony. An utterly fascinating man and I was fortunate to see India at the tail end of the Raj - the "permit raj" - When India was still little changed from the British days.

I've pretty well decided to take out the butt extension (and retain it), add a new recoil pad (orange) and leave it at that. I'll have to get her buy-in though and will need to discuss this with son. He is not going to pawn this gun - it is part of his blood. He is right handed. Actually she is too but because of a weak right eye, shoots left handed. If she objects to the change, we'll do the recoil pad and just call it a day.

A fascinating story, and I thank-you for taking the time to write it.

It looks to be the perfect gun for her to learn to shoot right handed! Eug is right about the center vision stock. I'm pretty sure I could shoot that with my left eye, given light loads that don't bust my jaw.

Great story though, thanks for the Bio on the general.

A well-drawn portrait and nice remembrance, Argo.

Thanks for sharing a bit of the General with us.

Regards,

JP

Yes, wonderful history and story of the use of the gun. I did not mean to imply that your child would automatically be rid of the gun, just post that it happens more often than we like to consider.
Good idea to run any changes past the actual owner-happy wife, happy life, and all that.

Thanks for sharing it all with us.


Best,
Ted

Thank you all for comments and suggestions. I'm comfortable with the decision once she buys in. To finish up the story, here is General Palit 1991 at age 72 on one of his polo ponies with son who will inherit the shotgun. I had a complete course in game hunt etiquette from the General...almost entirely based on British hunting "rules" but with a couple of Indian Army twists (if the bird gets up and flys dead away from the senior officer in the hunt - its his bird; and its corollary - If a bird gets up pretty much anywhere - it's his first'. fortunately I was of a rank and as a democratic American and driver of the Jeep could negate that). And I failed utterly; I was using a Remington 870 pump.

An amazing time - I could mention the full dress ceremonial receptions for the Presidential bodyguard with the regimental silver, dinner jackets, Maharanis in jeweled saris and the regimental officers in red coats with chain mail eppellets...19th century. He was the "Colonel" (honorary commander) of the Indian Army Gurka regiment which he had commanded in 1948.





Yes, I'd give her a William Evans; (1990 in Uttar Pradesh - along an irrigation canal) Still will (She hasn't changed)

Argo, you're just bragging now.

What can I say? I was asked the question, "why?" India is seductive.

General Palit and I sometimes shot Nilgai...called "blue bull"...an antelope which destroyed fields but which the locals believed to be a cow (protected per Hindu religion) because of the hump on its back behind the neck (much like a Brahma Bull). So they left it to us. The meat, when wrapped in bacon (It was very red and lean) was amazing.

I've heard from Wm Evans and will get to the bottom of the original order sheet and especially whether silver was used on the gun and whether the original order included that cast off. Just for history.

Right handed shooters with a bad right eye should consider shooting a crossover style gun. The Evans may actually be a crossover gun for a slim faced person like your wife. A crossover takes little time to adjust to. I shoot a cased pair of William Evans sidelock crossovers as my favorite clays guns. We are not far from each other, I am about ten miles from the Maryland side of the bridge. I would be glad to give your wife a short instruction with her gun and mine to determine what can be done to allow her to return to right handed shooting. Her Evans is not suitable for shooting from the left shoulder.

Many thanks eight. She hasn't shot the 20 bore in oh...10 years..since it bruised a shoulder which is why I'm trying to gently update it. I'm trying to get her out to the Bull Run Shooting Center for an afternoon. She always enjoyed shooting in the past but has been involved in many other things recently. Actually I was the one who got her shooting that shotgun left handed - I was afraid she'd break her nose shooting those hot cartridges the General had in India. She's in France right now...I'll send you a private message. Perhaps you can help and it is very kind of you to offer. Gene Williams

Following from Williams Evans - this letter is communicating the original handwritten entries on the gun in the company books (photo-copies of which were forwarded as well). It seems odd that all six guns were ordered by "J. Wakefield" yet this one was sold to "Jacob Wakefield." Wonder if he were a dealer and just kept this one for himself? (but perhaps when Wm Evans mentioned that the "guns" were ordered...they misspoke? I can't quite read the turn of the century handwriting.)

The Best leather case, however was ordered hand labeled for "W. H. Wakefield"; it cost all of 2.17 lbs. I wonder if the gun were a present, perhaps for Jacob Wakefield's son, which might explain the stock extension later on? (The WHW label is missing from the case now).

Also trying to figure out how the gun could include trade-in value for Wm Evans #6050?? - unless he had ordered 6050 and in the 3 years wait for 5210, just abandoned his 20 lb deposit?

There is nothing about silver or cast off or special orders. Curious. I thought there might be more. Still, since the gun is an heirloom now, it's nice documentation to have.

There is an entry for Jacob Wakefield, Sedgewick House, Kendell, owning a stallion named "Sutton Park" in the 1993 livestock journal.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Bik_AQ...ick&f=false

The Wakefields of Kendall or something or another are gentry...no telling which rank - there were 113 in the class division of Britians in 1900.- Jacob was a banker. There is a great book by the author of the Flashman series George McDonald Fraser which features this country gentry class system - read "Mr. American" and take a look at the whole series...the greatest historical fiction on the 19th century empire and utterly hilarious.

W. H. Wakefield, son of Jacob Wakefield, His mother was American (daughter of the American Consul in Liberpool). He was born in 1891...when the gun was ordered he was 9 years old...when it was delivered he was 13...

https://books.google.com/books?id=8vQ7AA...ick&f=false



Anyway here is the pedigree.

Kendell is in Westmorland county - more connections to me and Vietnam'

Westmorland (sometimes spelled Westmoreland) in North West England no longer exists as a county, the original core of it having merged into the modern district of Eden within the county of Cumbria.

The traditional county of Westmorland, like neighbouring Lancashire, was itself a new creation during the Middle Ages. It seems to have been treated as part of Yorkshire in the 11th century, and the eventual boundaries represented a merger between an earlier entity called Westmorland, and the Barony of Kendal, which was apparently originally considered part of the Honor of Lancaster, though it did not become part of Lancashire. Kendal is also now part of Cumbria.

The original Westmorland is sometimes referred to as Westmarieland and is later referred to as the Barony of Appleby or "Northern Westmorland".

List of High Sheriffs of Westmorland County:

1893: Jacob Wakefield, of Sedgwick House, Kendal[39]

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

SEDGWICK is a township on the river Kent, in the civil parish of Heversham, but for ecclesiastical purposes in the parish of Crosscrake, and is 2 � miles south-by-west from Oxenholme junction station on the London and North Western railway, 4 north from Milnthorpe station on the same line, and 4 south from Kendal. The Kendal and Lancaster canal runs through the township. Sedgwick House, the seat of Jacob Wakefield esq. D. L., J. P. is a fine mansion of Lancaster free stone, surrounded by about 7 acres of well laid out pleasure grounds. The area is 484 acres of land and 11 of water; rateable value, �2,385; the population in 1901 was 221.

Sedgwick House; the family owned up to 5,000 acres in the late 19th Century.



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Family crest



Now how did that 20 gauge get from NW England to India?

Jacob Wakefield ordered six guns but has one son? Or only one son that we know of? And they noted a bend was put in the original Evans #5210 but no mention of the extension or original LOP.

I Think William Evans made a mistake. I think these guns were ordered by a gun dealer for various persons in NW England and sold to them. The 20 bore was bought by Jacob Wakefield for his son. I'l check with Wm Evans again to clarify that letter. Wakefield was not a gun dealer - no reason for him to have ordered all six.

Wonder if the kid's right eye was weak?

If you notice Gun #5210 is already longer by 1/8th. Is that 1/8 of an inch or 1/8th longer LOP then the other five guns?
Notice the handwritten comment, "Bend, length, cast same as but 1/8 longer"

Did all guns have a bend?

Would William Evans used a recoil pad like that? That wood extension in there probably because at 13 years of age that kid (WHW) had a lot more growing to do.


How do you know he resold them?

When I saw that drawing of WH Wakefield, I thought I'd seen that face before. This is a famous photo from India...."The Last Empire" (republished in America under a different name), a collection of photos (fantastic) of the Raj (called by the Indians the "Sirkar"). The problem is the photo is dated "1860."

-- I'm having a hard time seeing hammers on those guns - they may be there - not sure; but since hammerless guns didn't come out until about 1880...no matter - I have an EM Reilly with hammers firmly dated to 1898.

-- And in 1860 there were demned few center-break shotguns out there...everyone used something that would shoot British Army ammo...and breech loaders didn't even come into use in India until the Snider-Enfields started to arrive about 1866. (Center break guns were made and publicized by British gun makers impinging on Casimir Lefaucheux's patents beginning in the 1850's.. but the shooting fraternity was extremely conservative).

-- No under-levers either. No Damascus barrels but rather steel....

-- And I'm not sure Indian Army (British Army) was using "puttees" (Lower leg boot wraps) at the time (I thought they came out of WWI), and I don't think "Khaki," color invented by the Guides in India existed until the late 1880's; these guys are not army..but are wearing Khaki and puttees.

-- And the key - The center character is wearing a wrist watch - They didn't become popular until 1914-6 courtesy of Soldier fashion. "On July 9, 1916, The New York Times puzzled over a fashion trend: Europeans were starting to wear bracelets with clocks on them."

The photo is clearly mis-dated by some 60 years. So is the center person actually WH Wakefield out in India circa 1920? (edit: Underlever on the shotgun on the left; possible Damascus barrels on the shotgun on the right; possible hammers on all of them?)





The above is a pretty silly post and extremely unlikely. This was a wealthy and prominent family. The Grandfather had a gunpowder company as well as a bank and a railroad. And someone sketched him as a young man in Kendel. Nevertheless, I can find no follow-on information on Jacob's son William Henry. There were numerous Wakefields who worked in India or were connected to India. The Family gave up the great house before WWII. It is credible that faced with other relatives running the banking business....he went out to India...perhaps as a 20 year old before WWI.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Wakefield

Do my eyes deceive me or is there a significant cast off on that shotgun on his lap?

I was wrong on the puttees....1897 photo of British Army troops mobilized for the "Mad Mullah"campaigns of 1897-98 in the Pashtun areas of Bajur, Kyber, etc. Churchill wrote a great book about the Bajur campaign The Story of the Malakand Field Force.. (for what it's worth, I've driven over that pass (going north from the Peshawar plains over into the Swat Valley)....and flown over it in helicopters - how anyone could climb those Knifed-edged ridges under fire is beyond me).

.

Allegedly a Photo of Guides troops during the relief of the Chitral fort in 1895..I doubt that - they had to go over the Shandur Pass, a 14,000' Himalayan pass from Gilgit to Chitral in dead of winter (unless they were part of the second prong which forced the Malakand Pass - coming up from Peshawar). (Recommend the book "Where Three Empires Meet" if you're curious). They're holding brand new Martini-Henry's. After the mutiny, Brits always made sure Indian troops were one generation behind in rifles...By this time Lee-Enfield (Long Lees) were being issued to British troops.



This from Wikipedia:

The puttee was first adopted as part of the service uniform of foot and mounted soldiers serving in British India during the second half of the nineteenth century. In its original form the puttee comprised long strips of cloth worn as a tribal legging in the Himalayas. The British Indian Army found this garment to be both comfortable and inexpensive, although it was considered to lack the smartness of the gaiter previously worn.[2] According to the British author and soldier Patrick Leigh Fermor infantry puttees were wound up from ankle to knee, but in cavalry regiments they were wound down from knee to ankle. [3]

The puttee was subsequently widely adopted by a number of armies including those of the British Commonwealth, the Austro-Hungarian Army, the Chinese National Revolutionary Army, the Belgian Army, the Dutch Army, the French Army, the Imperial Japanese Army, the Italian Army, the Portuguese Army, the Turkish Army and the United States Army. Most of these armies adopted puttees during or shortly before World War I. Puttees were in general use by the British Army as part of the khaki service uniform worn from 1902, until 1938 when a new Battledress was introduced, which included short webbing gaiters secured with buckles.[4]

Puttees generally ceased to be worn as part of military uniform during World War II. Reasons included the difficulty of quickly donning an item of dress that had to be wound carefully around each leg, plus medical reservations regarding hygiene and varicose veins. However the cheapness and easy availability of cloth leggings meant that they were retained in the Japanese and some other armies until 1945.

When the British Army finally replaced Battledress with the 1960 Pattern Combat Dress, the webbing gaiters were replaced by ankle high puttees

++++++++++++++++And I'm wrong about Khaki++++++++++++++++

Khaki was first worn in the Corps of Guides that was raised in December 1846 as the brain-child of Sir Henry Lawrence (1806�1857) Resident at Lahore, and Agent to the Governor-General for the North-West Frontier. Lawrence chose as its commandant Sir Harry Lumsden supported by William Stephen Raikes Hodson as Second-in-Command to begin the process of raising the Corps of Guides for frontier service from British Indian recruits at Peshawar, Punjab.

Initially the border troops were dressed in their native costume, which consisted of a smock and white pajama trousers made of a coarse home-spun cotton, and a cotton turban, supplemented by a leather or padded cotton jacket for cold weather. For the first year (1847) no attempt was made at uniformity. Subsequently, in 1848 Lumsden and Hodson decided to introduce a drab (khaki) uniform[4] which Hodson commissioned his brother in England to send them � as recorded in Hodson's book of published letters, Twelve Years of a Soldier's Life in India.[2]

It was only at a later date, when supplies of drab (khaki) material was unavailable, did they improvise by dying material locally with a dye prepared from the native mazari palm. Some believe the gray drab/khaki color it produced was used historically by Afghan tribals for camouflaging themselves. The mazari could not, however, dye leather jackets and an alternative was sought: Cloth was dyed in mulberry juice which gave a yellowish drab shade.[5]:537�539 Subsequently, all regiments, whether British or Indian, serving in the region had adopted khaki uniforms for active service and summer dress. The original khaki fabric was a closely twilled cloth of linen or cotton..

"Bend" in the ledger refers to the drop at comb and heel and has nothing to do with the cast of the stock.
All guns have bend...

OK, that explains the words 'bend' and 'cast' in the description.

I'm belaboring this line but here is explanation for the comment by William Evans that this 20 bore bought by Jacob Wakefield was part of "a six gun order." Williams Evans explained that Wakefield did not order six guns. Rather Williams Evans sent a bundled order at one time from six separate individuals to "the factory" and at that point the (ordered) six were serial numbered. The six guns had been ordered by separate individuals from William Evans; their names are listed in the ledger. So Wakefield ordered one gun #5210 and traded in #6050 as credit (perhaps a deposit on a separate order?).

I have no idea who made William Evans guns at the time or where "the factory" was located. Previous posts (trw999) indicate Birmingham as a source of "white guns" and in particular Webley Scott.

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=461982

But what about the comment on the hand written note,

"Bend, length cast same as (I can't make that out) but 1/8 longer."

With the asterisk it appears that the length has to be 1/8 longer.


Well, 1/8 longer than what?

But it looks like the original LOP was 13 1/2 inches as you said which may be a perfect LOP for a 13 year old boy but as he grew then it appears that the gun was to short for him and the wood extension was fitted. In India?

The way I read it is that there was a batch of six guns but only 5210 went to Wakefield with the other five having other owners.

Nice to see a 20 bore of the proper weight of 5 1/4 ounces. Good reason to use the correct weight of 20 bore cartridges of 13/16th. ounce.

Always interesting when the history of a gun can be traced. Kendal is at the south end of the Lake District National Park. Beautiful area to visit. Lagopus.....

An appeal for some help from trw999 or lagopus or anyone who can access British death records. This gun is staying in the family,so I'd like to connect the dots.

I'm still wondering about the boy/man for whom this 20 bore was bought, William Henry Wakefield, born 06January1891 in Kendal, son of Jacob Wakefield and Annie nee Brougham (apparently an American - daughter of the US Consul in Liverpool). I thought if I could get a date and place of death, it would tell me if he were ever in India. But there is nothing on the on-line death records from UK for a person with that name and birth date. I can find no record of marriage or other activities - just birth date, parents, and the information on his father buying him this shotgun + that sketch on the Wakefield genealogy board of a fully grown man.

There is a William Henry Wakefield b. 05 January 1891 (place of birth not mentioned), who died in Northampton in 1971 - married a Northampton woman born about the same time - but I somehow don't think this is the man - the marriage looks very "local.".

I'm wondering if UK national records would have a record of his death if he died say in India? Do you have suggestions on where I might look? There are no records of this name in the Indian family history office records. Many thanks.

(of course it could be he just traded the shotgun in and it was bought by General Palit's father or grandfather in London during their frequent trips there - though with the long pull...why?). (edit: and I may have the answer sitting in that 500 page manual typed manuscript he have us....I'll take a look.)

+++++++++ add++++++++


and in the interest of history here is a partial quote from one interlocutor upon Gen. Palit's death:

"It was plain bad luck and bad vibes with Churchill that saw General Sir Claude Auchinleck, heading the Middle East Command in the Second World War when the going was tough against Rommel�s Afrika Korps, being shunted off just as the tide of the battle was turning in July 1942 at Alam Haifa. Auchinleck was handed his Field Marshal�s baton and kicked upstairs as Commander-in-Chief, India. Career-wise, it was catastrophic for the �Auk� but a boon for Palit. Few native officers in the British Indian Army were better connected to the C-in-C than �Monty� Palit. His father � Colonel A.N. Palit, an �OBE�, was the Medical Officer attached to the 62nd Punjabis in the 1920s, a battalion of which the then Major Auchinleck was Adjutant. For an Anglophilic army, fealty to the crown mattered. �Monty� Palit got choice postings.

Commissioned into the elite Baloch Regiment in 1939 out of the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, Palit at the time of Partition won a prized billet with the (3/9) Gurkhas � a regiment the British scrupulously avoided posting Indian officers to � and which unit he led in a hard-fought action to capture the crestline above the Haji Pir salient in the Poonch sector in the 1947-48 Kashmir operations. Palit was wounded and won the Vir Chakra. Thereafter, he rose swiftly to command the 7 Infantry Brigade stationed in NEFA (North East Frontier Agency) and only a year or so into his tenure, was rushed into the job of Director, Military Operations, at the Army Headquarters, manifestly the most coveted post in the army for a Brigadier-ranked officer and that too a relatively newly minted one. Fatefully for him, the mountain war with China in 1962 intervened.........."

(edit: Reading Gun. Palit's notes on his family...that's a pretty snarky picture of the man and his family - Indian bureaucracy, as normal, had plenty of snipers....and I played golf once with an Indian 3 star Sikh who commented that with Palit "you see his fight coming from 50 yards away.")

For those curious about the history of guns, here's more about the .20 Williams Evans.

General D.K. Palit published a memoir in 2004 titled "Musings & Memories" (we have the first volume in manuscript form) in two volumes and 650 pages in which he discusses much of his life.

https://books.google.com/books/about/Musings_Memories.html?id=SPLSMXSl8dEC

Some pages were devoted to people he met along the way including me and my wife. Here are excerpts from P. 597:

,,,,,"Christopher, the younger son, then three years old, used to love riding on my pommel as I hit the ball about the 61st Cavalry polo ground; and I soon became his favorite outsider. That's how close we had become to each other. On Sunday's, Patel's day off, Genevi�ve even insisted on serving me at table with a cooked breakfast from her kitchen!

....."And when Gene began to accompany me on duck and partridge shoots at Aurangpur, it put a firm seal on our closeness. (Gene, as one might have expected, possessed a single-barrel "pump gun" - the hallmark of the average American sportsman! - heavy and cumbersome with its 32" barrel. So he began to use my William Evans fully-finished box-lock .20 bore (bequeathed to me by my old friend Reggie Sawhney, when he married his American second wife and migrated to the States). After a three-year stint, when the Williams' were posted back to Washington, I in turn presented the gun to Gene."

Uh. excuse me General....I hit everything with that "cumbersome Remington 870." (Oh the Empire - even its remnants - and its pretentions! ...) And you gave the Williams Evans to Genevi�ve, not me (ok maybe you gave it to me but she claims it, QED).

Oh well. I'll post a bit of information separately about Indian Navy Captain Reggie Sawhney which will take the story back another generation.

As noted in the previous post Major General D.K. �Monty� Palit was given the .20 gauge Williams Evens by Indian Naval Captain Reggie Sawhney, date not mentioned but it had to be after 1975. Sawhney was a big man, big enough to have added an extension to the stock if need be. He is mentioned in a few Indian and British officers� memoirs such that a picture of him can be put together somewhat.

Born Lahore probably a few years earlier than General Palit say 1912 or so? His father was Indian, a Professor (probably at Punjab University in Lahore - founded about 1880 and prestigious); his mother was British.. His brother was Duggie Sawney of the Indian 16th cavalry (and brother-in-law of Indian industrial titan J.R.D. Tata) and he had a sister named Sheila Sawhney (both mentioned in Palit�s book). He was one of a group of students who with Palit traveled to UK on the SS Strathmore in Sept 1936. He was known as a sportsman, natty dresser, a pukka Sahib, something of a dilettante, a person who put play above work, and someone who was not excessively serious about his job even though he rose to the rank of captain and commanded the Indian equivilent of Annapolis.

He was an Indian Naval reserve officer in 1947 when India and Pakistan split apart; he was apparently torn about which way to cast his lot even though he was Hindu because of his ties to Lahore but wound up in the Indian Navy.

�.. British Naval officer Benjamin Samson recounted an incident in 1947 when Sawhney, then a Naval Reserve Lt. Commander, signaled that he was having difficulty making up his mind which side to choose, Pakistan or India, and asked for an extension. The Indian officer Daya Shankar went over to the soon to be Pakistan Naval officer Siddique Choudhury and said �why don�t we come to an agreement, I�ll give you two extra ships and you keep Sawhney.�

�.. Samson went on to note that Sawhney was �a well-known character with a tremendous sense of humour, who whilst very English in many ways, was yet a complete desi-Punjabi and fond of the �good life�! He also did not like to over-stretch himself in any way in so far as work was concerned, which he considered an unnecessary chore; he could never understand why the Navy took their work so seriously � So here he was, liked by most because he was good company and an intelligent person, but not exactly the first person to choose for your team.�
A Few Good Men. Benjamin Abraham Samson 1916-2016.
http://www.basamson100.com/commander-ins-delhi.php

Air Marshal Idris Hasan Latif commented that Capt Reggie Sawhney of the Navy was deputy commandant of the JSW (National Defense Academy). He noted that Sawhney was a charming and friendly person with a wonderful sense of humor and recounted an incident where Sawhney humiliated the chief grounds instructor for being �disguised as a gentleman� (that might have been funny to the class-conscious but Sawhney comes across to us today as a first class pretentious twit).
The Ladder of His Life (Biography of Air Chief Marshal Idris Hasan Latif, PVSM)
https://www.amazon.com/Ladder-His-Life-Biography-Marshal/dp/9381904855

1975 Then US Ambassador to India William B. Saxbe commented on Sawhney who was his regular hunting and fishing companion. Per Saxbe Sawhney's mother was British, his father an Indian professor. He had been a captain in the Indian navy, and he had run the cadet school. He had retired from the navy and was an agent for an American sugar company. Saxbe mentioned that when they went hunting, Reggie would bring a table and tablecloth and the silver service to set it up so their lunch was ready when they came in (picture the servants doing the work).
I have seen the Elephant; an Autobiography. William B. Saxbe, US Ambassador to India 1975.
https://books.google.com/books/about/I_ve_Seen_the_Elephant.html?id=dz53AAAAMAAJ

Palit notes that Sawhney was very different from himself, but he ultimately became the General�s regular week-end shooting companion when both had retired. And here the trail ends. Sawhney died about 2000. His American wife may be alive and might know where and how he got the Williams Evans. He had to have come to the USA on a "Marriage Visa" and as such there will be extensive records at State about him, his family and American wife. That might be a stretch to get and track down. But for now�that�s about as far back as I can take the story. It�s been fun.

Passing out parade dec 1950. Sawhney naval officer on podium behind commander taking the salute. Cadets carrying SMLE Enfield .303's.

I owned Saxbe's Parker trap gun, sold it to a friend who still enjoys it. I have another friend who served in the East in the seventies who may remember something about Saxbe or Sawhney. Guns are a great link. I have a big game gun from my "other friend" which he used when in the East with the government.

Great story eight...And thanks. There are inevitably hangers-on in embassy circles abroad who get to be well-known and it sounds like Sawhney, who worked for an American company, ran with the American community. Perhaps your friend might remember who Sawhney married and when.

Funny, this started off with a stock...and ended with a history investigation, an enjoyable trip for me...thanks.. I guess guns do have souls in a way.

Just to correct one part of this story - Gen Palit shot a Holland & Holland, not a Churchill as I believed:

Some of Saxbe's guns ended up in Sloan's Auction House in Rockville, MD after his death. I bought a couple of guns in that auction, one of them a nice Parker VHE trap gun with 32" ventilated rib barrels and a miserable stock and forearm with a silver nameplate with Saxbe's name engraved. On a visit to Larry Del Grego's shop in Ilion, New York, I saw a finished stock on the bench and asked about it. Lawrence, Larry's son, told me he had made the stock and forearm for a customer who wasn't satisfied with it for some reason. I had the Saxbe gun in the car, and asked Lawrence if that stock and forearm would possibly fit on the gun. Of course, Lawrence said that it would be unlikely there would be an acceptable fit. Larry and I went out for a long lunch and good conversation. When we got back to the shop, the stock and forearm were perfectly fitted to the Saxbe trap gun. There were no gaps between wood and metal anywhere on the gun. I don't know much about Saxbe's other guns, but I'm sure there were a bunch of them.

It's a beauty

You guys....you have a beautiful gun that might have known mine...and you keep the photos to yourself. Oh well...We'd like to see the Parker...but evidently it's in "Purdah?"

Saxbe's Parker lives in Connecticut now.