doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Birmingham

I have a question(s) kicking around but am not sure that I even know how to ask.

In my very limited understanding Birmingham can be compared, to some extent, with American locations like Syracuse, Ithaca, Meriden, etc, as a center of the firearms trade. The American trade shows a history of small entrepreneurial endeavours. Some lasted only a few years, others a decade or two. A few really successful companies actually survived the death of the founder. I can think of names like Lefever, Parker, Baker, LC Smith, all who are relatively known in the American market, but would only get vague glimmers of recognition in Europe.

Who were the players in the Birmingham trade? Who were the Lefevers and Bakers in Birmingham? The other part of the question... How heavily had these shops "bought in" or perhaps "invested in" is better, to the industrial revolution? In other words, were they doing everything by hand or did they mechanize? I have seen pictures from both Belgium and America showing shops were mechanization was scarcely used and conversely where there were factories in operation. I am not sure I have seen similar pictures of shops in Birmingham.

Looking to increase my knowledge of the English trade....

Pete

Most of the information you are interested in is contained in Doug Tate's book, "Birmingham Gunmakers." The most recognized gunmaking firms were: William Baker, Bentley & Playfair, Bonehill, A. A. Brown & Sons, BSA, Cashmore, Clabrough, Ford, Greener, Harper, Harris, Holloway & Naughton, G & S Holloway, Ilsley, W P Jones, Lewis, Leonard, Needham, Osbourne, Powell, Rosson, Skimmin & Wood, H. Tolley, J & W Tolley, Turner, Rowland Watson % Thomas Wild, Webley & Scott, Scott, Webley, Westley Richards, and Tony White. There were others and there were many specialists like the machinists, lock makers, barrel makers, spring makers, etc. Birmingham was very much a hand made trade. Shops were run by masters. Work was traded among shops, specialist work was done by outworkers, some aspired to running a big shop and others were one man shops. Aside from BSA, there was not much mechanization. Shops grew into factories and factories disappeared in a puff of misfortune. Names came and went and some came back. It is a rich history, now mostly gone.

Pete, here are a couple pics of the last of the gunsmiths in the old Greener building, Mick Wagstaff and R. Kelly. Mick's brother was working on barrels in the back room and Philip Duffill was engraving. Paul D

I believe that the only remaining maker in the old gun quarter is William Powell. I visited Powell several years ago and their fully restored Victorian building sits smack in the middle of the modern steel and glass office buildings that now are built over the foundations of many of the small shops that Rocketman named.
I guess that's called progress!

Midland??

Certainly Midland --- and several others.

What about Greener, or does he go in another list?

Bailey and Nie; in their book, "English Gun Makers" identify approx ;1300 different gunmakers as active in Birmingham during the 18th; and 19th;centuries.They identified the major players of this era as follows:-
B.S.A.,Bonehill, Cooper and Co; Field rifle Co; Greener, Hollis, Marson, Needham, W.& C.Scott, Swinburn, Thomas, Tipping & Lawden, Tolley, Tranter, Turner, Phillip Webley, Webley & Scott, [Following the amalgamation of Webley and Scott],
It is worthy of note that the following Birmingham gun makers exhibited at the U.S. International exhibition in Philadelphia of 1876. Greener, W.& C.Scott, P.Webley, Needham,and J.& W.Tolley,
By the late 1940,s there remained approximately 30 active gunmakers in the Birmingham gun Quarter. Powells and Westley Richards were and are, located outside of the boundaries of the old Birmingham gun quarter.
Webley and Scott, were organised for batch production and produced most of the actions and barrels used by the smaller and some of the more well known makers. W.& C.Scott, following their split from Webleys did introduce C.N.C. machining to minimise hand operations and reduce cost, unfortunately this was not enough to keep them as independent manufacturers. Following their aquisition by Holland and Holland the C.N.C. machining operations were transfered to H.& H,s.London factory, were as I understand it has been expanded and put to good use.
The redevelopment of Birmingham and its new road systems, plus the expiry of 100 year land leases, forced many fine makers out of the city to names that spring to mind include ; Greener,s A.A. Brown and Wisemans.Unfortunately many others failed.

A better comparison for Birmingham would be the gunmaking centers of Europe: Liege, Suhl, St. Etienne, etc. A few large firms along with a lot of specialized, independent outworkers.

2p - Greener was/is definitely a "player" in Birmingham.

Thanks to everyone who responded. I got a little motived. I found this excellent source. There is only 1 chapter on the guntrade. These folks really have their statistics together. They even provide direct comparisions for labor costs between Birmingham and Liege. They also were very much into gathering stats about who supplied the most arms at what cost during the American Civil War.

Here are just some interesting pieces, I am jumping around...





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Remember, all the above applies to 1866. They never did an update, unfortunately.

Pete