doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Some info re Benjamin Wild and Son

After picking up a “Benjamin Wild and Son” 12G, I researched and discovered things of possible interest. I’d read about barrels here and there marked with the name but not many a gun.

The gun I’ve got was said by its English appraisers/evaluators to have been made early 1980’s but that can’t be right since Wild admitted they’d not made guns for many years previous to 1981. So, even prior to the 1980’s it (d)evolved to a lot of sleeving, barrels, and stock work apparently. Repairs and the like. Mine has extensive hand engraving and is truly (for me) a wonder to appreciate for a Birmingham boxlock. I’ll check out Imgur or something to see if I can post images. The co. cycled about only a little in its latest years and eventually went bankrupt. Looks to have re-opened at its location as an air gun shop, now defunct.

If you make it through this posting, I also find it nice that at my workplace (well, prior to my retirement) our “coffee time” at about 3:00Pm was one of the nicest periods of the day.
—————————-

Note: Son Colin was with the company until he passed in early 2016, which then had but two "gunmakers," one who worked for 40-years in the trade. I also found an air rifle company of the same name at the same address which succeeded the timeframe but is now long defunct. After Colin's death, the company in 2017 was reformed by Elizabeth Southall (former name Elizabeth Wild) but it went into insolvency in 2021. (There were records to indicate there was little to pay employee(s) or creditors). Sadly, this must have been "the story" and ending to so many small outworker companies and family businesses in Birmingham.

[about the below record from 1981 (credit the Birmingham Museums), I’m suspecting the then-60 year old Mr. Benjamin Wild is “Jr.” to his father of the same name, so Jr. was the original “Son”] [it’s from an oral history, I’ve tried to use much of the same phrasing and jargon spoken, but re-worded it as well so it’s more readable.]

Benjamin Wild’s grandfather George Wild was a gunmaker on Bagget St. He’d worked in “the Tower.” A (great) uncle (William Wild) taught George and George consequently worked as an outworker in the gun trade, having worked in and out of the firm Smith’s Gun Works. Benjamin worked in the gun trade well before the birth of Jr. He worked for Midland Gun Co., Smith’s Gun Works, and on his own.

Benjamin Wild (Jr.) was age 15 when he worked at the Midland Gun Co., then went to the Army. After leaving the service, he worked with his father and they became “Benjamin Wild and Son.” The business didn’t flourish. They pulled back: his father worked nighttimes to keep the name going. He worked from his garden shed for some years… eventually Benjamin Jr. decided to go full-time in the trade and around 1959, son and father moved and worked from Price St. Thereafter, Benjamin Jr.’s son (named Colin) left school and began as a partner with the company. As of 1981, the business remained organizationally as it has since the move to Price St. They eventually moved “across into the other yard” because the original space wasn’t large enough. There was an upstairs showroom but which closed and they’d had a retail space in Northfield.

Benjamin Sr. had a workshop prior to Jr. joining. Sr. worked at a rented stand with a bench inside the premises; there were several stands like this around. He did action work for some gun masters. Firms would employ people like this. One was always self-employed - the workbench paid six days a week and work for others. This said, you were expected to do the work of the landlord first, and could do work for other gunmakers.

The Wilds lived in Selly Park, which is south of the A38 Bristol Road near Westley Richards' former Bournbrook (Selly Oak) premises. As to full-time gun work, there were ups and downs; Sr. was also a locksmith and a very clever man who did metal working.

Jr. went into the trade after WW2 began but didn’t expect to be in the gun trade. Jr. worked at Midland Gun Co. at what was called the warehouse where they issued all the work out (it was located at Bath St. and Witch Hall St., St Mary's Row). Surrounding streets had many little family workshops working at all hours. As a Midland Warehouse worker, you'd be sent out w work, come back, and the work issued out to the next man and again. The warehouse wasn't much a storeroom but it was working on benches making some parts. Armfuls of guns were carried about and walked all over the area.

Training focused on odd jobs and simple parts work but then after the Army, Sr. taught Jr. the “real learning.” Benjamin Wild and Son lost a lot of money but it didn’t fall into bankruptcy; the co. was sold, then it prospered. Jr. took on a different line or work but still worked night time as side work in the gun trade. Sr. retired. Jr.’s day job was in the "mack" room industry. But then Jr. went full-time in the gun trade having so much work for gun shops all over the country. The volume of work increased so Benjamin Wild and Son began taking on employees.

Business primarily came by advertisements in the Shooting Times and being known to do work satisfactorily. There were certainly “cheaters” in the gun trade; the only way however to build a business in the trade was to not cheat. With more work, the co. employed two new workers. They’d come from Greener having some specific experience - the basics were there, and Benjamin taught them a lot. Others have since been trained on-site.

Now (1981), work has gone very quiet and it’s a problem since there’s no money in it. It was increasingly harder to find employees due to the emphasis on employee rights and retirements. If you work hard you can make a decent living but you can't make a fortune - “the gun trade would make a fool of you.” There are more lucrative trades. The gun trade might not pickup for a long time. People don't have the money to spend - the working chap, now he can't afford it. If he’s looking for a new gun, the purchase keeps being put off year after year.

Benjamin Wild and Son did barrel sleeving, fitting new barrels, restocking, renovating woodwork, woodwork. The co. can do most of the processes on-site w its staff. Some work goes out if there’s a little too much work. Benjamin’s son-in-law, an engineer, has a barrel making machine, a barrel maker. Benjamin brought his son-in-law into the gun trade. Anthony Hail (Hyle) is (the barrel making machinery, dealer?). He offered the machine to Benjamin who didn’t know anything about barrel making but now it’s Benjamin’s son-in-law doing machine work, actually sleeving work, and doing all the machining because he wasn't a bench man… he wasn’t a gunsmith. The machine shop allows all the machining for the gun trade.

One gun stocker learned his trade at Benjamin Wild and Son. The co. uses one in Paris which Benjamin brought into the gun trade but he eventually wanted to go for a new start and he still does outwork for the co. Some employees left on their own accord, “some were sacked”. “A young chap with skills you give him the easy jobs so they can't make really mistakes and gradually build them up” and in the beginning it takes you a lot of time. It's progress all the time. You never stop learning, get guns all the time such and such repaired, “lord never seen one of these before, you have to study how one works, have to make it work, got to figure it out.” You keep learning forever.

Benjamin Sr. was a very good skilled worker who taught Jr. all. But that wasn't sufficient, it's limited to certain parts and when Jr. went at it on his own he used a lot of common sense and keeping eyes out and experimenting. People come around and ask Jr., “Have you seen one of these (guns) before?” and Benjamin would recognize it from months prior.

As to the gun trade and secrecy and suspicion between co.’s, there always been a little bit of rivalry. A lot of places don't want to share - when you work you have to watch when others get jealous, you compete against one another.

Reflecting on mass production work, there are so many costs you can't afford the people. Some of those mass production shops - “nobody knows the gunman, so it's suicide for the gunman in the trade.” “They (those companies) believe they'll preserve the gun trade but they're going to destroy it.”

As for materials, some gun stocks are imported in, same for gun tubes for barrels, but there’s demand from W and C Scott. Benjamin Wild and Son buys tubes for sleeving from David Nickerson. The co. used to import a lot from Belgium and now France. The co. makes small parts relying on a good supplier of material. A lot of repairs “are done with the welding torch, you shape it and make it work again.” The co. has tools in the way of files and things. The co. makes its own chisels. Gradually, Benjamin Sr.’s original tools get lost but there are still some on-premises.

As for “other work here, no not now....that was a long time ago I haven't done anything now for 20-odd years.” “We don't make guns now, the idea of the craft, it's a long-winded sort of thing. You know the cash turnout. Get it out in two or three days, we don't keep repair work long.”

The expense of shipping guns is a problem and it gets more expensive. So gunshops are learning to do some of the simple jobs themselves. “Sometimes we get a lot of work in; it's the rubbish jobs, the rotten jobs. The easy jobs are not like getting the really lucrative jobs like we used to.” Benjamin Wild and Son deals with every part of the UK - North and South Ireland, Scotland, Wales, jobs in from Canada, America, Australia, and New Zealand. And Czechoslovakia and Vienna, and recommendations gained a lot of work from Germany.

As for getting everyone to combine and work together in the trade? “No, too much arguing, everyone does something different. Often said or suggested, There's always a maverick who says I don't want to do that, I want to do things cheap and cause a lot of trouble.” “They've always allowed us gunmen to work on our own. There are very few actual firms. Most kept to ourselves. This is one of the problems.”

Benjamin Wild and Son’s customers are gun shops and but just one or two individual people: 90% of the customers come from shops. The co. “has a manager, a very good fellow started in January, in sales, retail, guns accessories. Fishing tackle. Separate entity is fishing tackle. It's combined as a business.”

As to the conditions of the workshops - “I don't think they lack, they're as they were years ago, chaps always where they are now. Renovations. True (it seems to be a lack of basic necessities). (Make a difference for the people in the trade?) What it really amounts to - wash the bucket and do your repairs. It won't make the fastest work. I think some of the finest guns in the world were made in dirty old workshops.”

London: “We don't personally no don't work for London. We do repair London guns: Purdey, Holland and Holland, whatever comes in, but not work for them.”

Women in the trade: “On the bench no there's not women in the trade, maybe a manager one year ago. There was an old woman who used to do barrel blacking, but that was before my time, so no, women are in office work and packing is all, from time to time.”

Memories of the old trade: “A lot of the skills have gone out of it, more Spanish guns being imported, people make them work, current guns more than ever not affordable; people make them work… do a beautiful job.”

More about Family: “My younger brother was an apprentice to me when I worked with my father, but when we closed down, he transferred out of the gun trade. My younger son Danny worked for a couple of years, but didn't like it so he left. They find out rather shortly. I get letters regularly now for the employment situation, not a week goes by I don't get a couple letters "I want to be a gunsmith,’...Some of the old couldn't read or write. But you get more (letters of interest to work in the trade) when its unemployment (time)”

Memories: “Oh yes, there's always great characters, some very strange. Used to make coffee at 11 o' clock in the morning, one of the most important parts of the day at 11 o' clock. Some devils. There's less of that now. When I was very young.”