Purdey 20 Bore B-I-W Hammergun | Museum
What a privilege it is to have been allowed to purchase This Purdey Bar-in -Wood hammergun,serial no.9777
What makes this gun so special?
Apart from being a 20 bore , it has two original sets of 30" Damascus barrels one engraved on the shield plain and the other choke. Both pairs of barrels are in proof with thick walls and clean bores.The original stock is in fine condition as is the engraving.As with all hammerguns from this era it has rebounding locks. The action engraved by James Lucas who developed the Purdey rose and scroll.
The original lightweight oak case has its original tools and some added by the family that owned the gun. We decided not to do a thing to this gun , not even clean the case, for fear of ruining the patina. The real rarity about this gun is it was acquired from the original family that ordered the gun back in 1877. Please read the fascinating history below. We have put together a family tree to show the passage to the last family owner whom we purchased the gun from.
Christopher Owen writes,
completed in 1877 for Mr J. R. Wright.
John Reid Wright (1819 - 1896), a distiller and merchant. Was the second son of John Wright of Knockupworth Hall in Grinsdale, Carlisle, and Ann Wright (née Anderson). He moved to London and worked in the distillery business with John Reid, who was Master of the Worshipful Company of Distillers in 1804. He continued the business – John Reid Wright & Co Ltd, distillers – after Reid’s death in 1836.
The Worshipful Company of Distillers may have more information about John Reid Wright and the business.
The connection between the Wrights and Reid, I presume they were related in some way. Certainly John Wright's second son was given Reid as a middle name and John Wright also named one of his daughters Lucretia. John Reid's wife was named Lucretia. Given the dates, John Reid Wright must have been sent down to London when very young.
In the 1841 census, John (55) and Ann (50) Wright were recorded at Knockupworth Hall, along with children Lucretia (25), Eleanor (25) and David (20), who was styled as a ‘farmer’. David Wright (b.1921) was the third son of John Wright and married Ann Gillbanks in 1852, moving to Scoathwaite Close Farm in Ireby. He was my grandmother’s grandfather and died just before his father John in 1860.
John Reid Wright must have been staying at Knockupworth Hall for the 1861 census, possibly because his brother and father had just died. It recorded Ann Wright (72) as head of the family, with son John Reid Wright (41), daughter Mary A Thompson (35) and granddaughter Jane Eleanor Wright (3).
John Reid Wright was recorded in the 1871 census as living with two servants at 26 Aldersgate St., London, and remained there until his death in 1896. He acted as executor for brother David Wright (d.1860), father John Wright (d.1861) and mother Ann Wright (d.1881). It may be that Knockupworth Hall was sold at this point or soon after.
John Reid Wright didn’t marry. His probate record shows he left an estate worth £23,166 and his two executors were Mary Ann Middleton (b. 1854 née. Wright) and Margaret Elizabeth Wright. Both ladies were daughters of David Wright. I’m afraid this means that the portrait that is marked as being of John Reid Wright, is almost certainly not him. It must instead be a portrait of John Reid, because it is paired with a portrait of Lucretia. It also explains why the clothing appears to be early rather than late Victorian.
Another of David's daughters, Jane Eleanor Wright (b. 1857) married Robert Peat in 1886. They had a son, Robert Wright Peat (b. 1899), who was my grandmother’s first cousin (known as Robin). He worked as a land agent and lived at Raughton Head, near Carlisle. At some stage, the gun was passed to him.
On his death in 1977, Robin's widow Margit gifted the gun to my late father John Owen. His grandmother (and my great grandmother) was Ann Gillbanks Todd (née Wright), who was born posthumously to David in 1861.
Margit wrote the attached letter. She records the gun as having been nitro proofed circa 1925. She also says it was made for Robin's 'grandfather’ however, I think she was mistaken and it was actually made for his great-uncle. It passed to me when my father relinquished his gun licence around 2010.
