Historical Manuscripts Commission

Summary report on the records

of

Westley Richards & Co Ltd, gunmakers, Birmingham

in private possession

(reference: GB-800819-Westley)

N James, October 1990
Historical Manuscripts Commission

Table of Contents

Access

Introduction

Summary report

Corporate records

Accounts

Sales records

Production records

Records of guns made

Note on access

Access to the records in the following report is restricted and may be difficult to arrange. All enquiries about access should be directed in writing to the Historical Manuscripts Commission.

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Introduction

Westley Richards & Co Ltd was established in 1812 by the celebrated Birmingham gunmaker, William Westley Richards (1790-1865), He challenged the pre-eminence of the London gunmakers and his appointment as gunmaker to the Prince Consort in 1840 gave tangible expression to his success. The expansion of the firm in the nineteenth century was based on a continuous stream of technical improvements and innovations. Increasingly, it specialised in two areas: sporting guns, which continue to be the mainstay of the gunmaking part of the business, and the production of military weapons, beginning with the Enfield musket of 1853.

Westley Richards (1814-1897) continued his father's reputation for technical innovation as his partner between 1855 and 1865 and then head of the firm from 1865 to 1872. Finally, he superintended its transition to a limited liability company in 1872, when he became chairman. Westley Richards retired from the active management of the business in the same year, while remaining chairman, and the management increasingly fell under the control of the Deeley family in the late nineteenth century.

By the First World War, the company had lost its more lucrative military contracts to the Royal Ordnance factories. Between the two world wars, it relied heavily on orders for sporting guns from the Indian princes, a feature well-documented in the surviving ledgers for this period. The firm remains one of the three leading British makers of sporting guns, but has now diversified into other forms of precision engineering. It continues to operate from the Bournbrook site, to which manufacturing was transferred from the High Street in Birmingham c1898.

The production records cover most of the guns made by the firm since the early nineteenth century, often with annotations giving details of buyers and later repairs, There is also a good series of ledgers giving details of customers, accounts for the first half of the twentieth century.

In 1913 the company's managing director, LB Taylor, published A brief history of the Westley Richards firm 1812-1913. A short article on the company by John Wood, bringing the account up to the present day, appeared in Midlands Industry and Commerce, July 1988, pp42-43.

The Commission is most grateful to the present chairman, Mr Walter Clode, for permission to examine the surviving records of the firm and to Mr Simon Clode, director, for his assistance in compiling the following list.

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Summary report

All records are kept in Mr Simon Clode's office, except where otherwise specified.

Corporate records
Minute book 1872-99, including liquidator's accounts 1899 [Chairman's office]

Accounts
Journals (marked J-U) 1946-60 (12 volumes)

Miscellaneous accounts to 1980s (2 cupboards). Not inspected. [Chairman's office]

Sales records
Gun order books (7): 1897-1902, 1903-08, 1908-12, 1912-20, 1920-28, 1928-50, 1950-60

Customers' ledgers 1905-48 (5 volumes): 1905-10, 1914-20, 1920-c1926, 1927-c1936, 1937-48

Indexes to customers' ledgers (5 volumes)

Connaught shotguns sales books [2008-2176] 1979-87

Production records
Gun making cost book 1839

Stock book 1835-39

Stock book: Mauser rifles, carbines and pistols 1898-1933

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Records of guns made
Arranged by the serial number of each weapon. Earlier volumes are often described as 'barrel books'. Those series not designated by letters of the alphabet in the original volumes have been assigned numbers from 1 to 6 in this list for ease of reference. The volumes frequently overlap. Each entry refers to a single volume.

Series [2]

Includes two parallel sub-series to 1858.

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Series [3]

  Series [4]

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Series [5]

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T series

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O and G series

Notebook including technical data, dates of the shooting season, etc late 19th century [Chairman's office]

Framed royal warrants 19th-20th century [Entrance lobby]

Saltmarshe, Yorkshire, estate account book, marked ,expenses on dogs and game' 1821-34.

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