Research Press

This document contain a list of English and Welsh gunsmiths and gunmakers from around 1550 to about 1850, but excluding London gunsmiths/gunmakers. The list has been compiled from free on-line sources such as County Record and Archive Offices and The National Archives, but it must not be considered a definitive list, as new information is added from time to time. [274 pages] - May 2017, 224 pages / November 2017, 243 pages / December 2020 update, 31 additional pages

The development and growth of the gun trade in Oxford during the 17th and 18th centuries. Features: William Upton, John Nicholes, William Hawkes, William Emms, John Collis.

The development and growth of the gun trade in Oxford during the 17th and 18th centuries. Features: Martin Brown (Browne), Samuel Sykes, Thomas Beckley, John & James Forrest, William Dupe, Frederick Rudolph Beckhusan, John Venables, Field, Pether, George Webb.

A fresh look at the family of English industrialists who dominated the early American firearms trade.

This article documents a previously unknown and very rare pair of early detonating pistols by Samuel Nock. The pistols are designed to be fired by an early form and variant of the percussion system, known by collectors today as a pellet-lock, which uses a round detonating wafer. Samuel was the nephew of the celebrated London gunmaker Henry Nock. He was apprenticed to his uncle in 1791 and he opened a shop at 180 Fleet Street in 1806. In 1823 Samuel moved his business to the more upmarket and fashionable Regent Circus where he remained until his death in 1852.

This article attempts to trace the fortunes of the Probins, a family (indeed, one might say, a dynasty) of Birmingham gunmakers.

The small flintlock pocket pistol that features in this article was once part of the collection of the late John Cooper, an authority on 17th century English pistols. The pistol is a magnificent example of the quintessentially English pistols that were produced during the middle decades of the 17th century and of which very few have survived. It was made by John Townson of London during the 1660s, a period when London was embroiled in a succession of the most dramatic and life changing events.