Before he went to Ireland he had a factory in the St.Paul’s district in Cheltenham and kept a chalked score on the inside of the factory door of the number of people (including myself) bitten by his terrier. Fortunately in those days I kept my jeans turned up at the ankle and the extra thickness of cloth saved me from any damage.

Another of his creations was a semi(?) automatic rifle in .250 Savage that came to my attention when he let it off in the underground.22 range at Cheltenham College. I didn’t get a chance to look at it closely but still remember the dust dislodged by the blast falling like rain from over the firing point.

From the calibre I suspect it may have been, like one of Bill Ruger’s early creations, a re-work of a Savage 99.

There was a recent TGS Outdoors YouTube video on his Fenian gun and David Baker did an article in DGJ about 15 years ago. Geoffrey Boothroyd had a chapter on him in his book on British Over and Under Shotguns.