I love provincial guns as they can often be a little bit quirky and many are every bit as good in quality as their London contemporaries.
The London gun has always been held up as the pinnacle but the subject of this article, a 13 bore two-groove percussion rifle by Robert Ancell of Perth in Scotland is every bit as good as anything that emanated from the metropolis.
Robert Ancell was an Englishman born as far back as 1782. For some reason he went the other way of many of his contemporaries and at an early age moved from England to Perth. Here he set up around 1810 a fishing tackle business in St John Street selling primarily fishing hooks. Fish hooks at this time were not mass produced and they were all hand made. By 1824 he advertised himself as a “Fish Hook, Fishing Rod, Brass Reel, Artificial Fly, Patent Silk and Hair Line Manufacturer”.
Being the gateway to the Scottish Highlands, Perth was an excellent location for a sporting shop with all the stalking and fishing near by and soon Ancell began dealing and making guns as well. Perth at this time was a relatively small city but due to its location it was home to several gunmakers.
Ancell’s business was given a great boost in 1847 when he was granted the Royal Warrant of Appointment from Prince Albert. “Gunmaker To His Majesty” was emblazoned on his premises and he immediately engraved all his guns and trade labels with this accolade.
Robert Ancell’s business prospered considerably from the appointment of the Royal Warrant in 1847 and in the 1851 census he is listed as a gunmaker employing nine men. This was a considerable number for such a small city and the work they produced was first rate as is evident with this rifle.
For a short time around the time the Warrant was granted, the business was known as Ancell & Salmond when Robert Ancell decided to retire. The business was eventually taken over by Edward Paton and in 1858 Robert Ancell died.
The 13 bore two-groove percussion rifle illustrated is no. 2039 by Robert Ancell. Since it is engraved with the Royal Warrant proclamation, it must have been made after 1847. It is a beautiful and stunning quality double rifle but what makes it especially interesting is that it is the No 2 of a pair. This is a little bit tantalising. Did somebody purchase a pair of rifles or perhaps a shotgun to match? Originally they would have been housed in a double case and what an outfit this must have been. Anybody know of Robert Ancell gun no. 2038?
The rifle was built for deer stalking and there is certainly plenty of that in the hills just north of Perth. On rifles you can usually tell what their raison d’etre was due to their engraving; tiger and lion on big game rifles and stags and hinds on deer stalking rifles. This rifle has a recumbent stag on the tang, another one on the trigger guard and just to complicate things a tiger on the patchbox.
The rifle has belted ball two-groove rifling that was then at the pinnacle of rifle development in the 1830s and 1840s. With multi-groove rifling it was difficult to ram the ball down particularly if the barrel was fouled up and often a hammer had to be carried to belt down the ramrod.
With a belted ball, a belt was created around the bullet and two corresponding deep grooves were cut in the barrel. The ball was carefully located in these grooves and it could be easily pushed down. Since the two-groove rifling was deep cut, there was no possibility of the bullet stripping and quite high charges could be used. Belted ball rifles tended to be in the bigger calibres as they were too tricky to load in smaller calibres. One defect of them was that the bullets were not aerodynamic and the system became obsolete when new types of rifling like Whitworth and Henry came into usage in the 1860s.
The Ancell rifle has fine twist 30” barrels with “R.Ancell, 44 George Street, Perth, Maker To H.R.H. Prince Albert” engraved on them. It has a triple bladed rear sight sighted up to 200yds and would have been quite accurate up to this range.
It is such a shame that the Ancell records are long gone as it would have been fascinating to find out who the rifle was made for and exactly what the other gun was. Now I wonder if it was made for Prince Albert – a possibility - who else would order a pair of rifles???
Holts December 2018 lot 530
Robert Ancell, By Royal Appointment
During the 1840s Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited the Highlands and Perth was one of their stopping points. Prince Albert visited Robert Ancell’s shop and bought powder, wads, accoutrements and so impressed was he by Ancell’s guns that he ordered a double gun for himself.
In October 1857 he granted Robert Ancell his Royal Warrant Of Appointment. The Perthshire Advertiser of 7th October 1847 announced the news excitedly. “Mr Ancell, having supplied the Prince with shooting apparatus and fishing tackle on a former Royal visit greatly to the satisfaction of his Royal Highness, Messrs. Ancell & Salmond have now received the appointment as Gunmaker to his Royal Highness and the Royal Family. The Royal Arms with this authority have accordingly been reared in front of their shooting and fishing tackle repository in George Street.
Robert Ancell was 65 when he received this accolade, surely the pinnacle of his career and quite an achievement for a provincial gunmaker.
Published by Vintage Guns Ltd on (modified )
