this pistol. A William Grice is recorded working at 43 Bull Street in Birmingham from 1766 to 1777. Either the same maker or another with the same name is also recorded working at 5 Sand Street from 1773–4 to his death in 1790. From 1782 he worked there in partnership with Joseph Grice, obviously a relative and perhaps his son, and Joseph continued at the same address until 1797. The maker’s mark on the butt cap of both pistols is positioned as would be expected for a London, not a Birmingham silversmith, and appears to be that registered by the London smallworker Joseph Steward in 1770 and presumably used until he registered another in June 1773. This suggests that both pistols were made by William Grice and the dates of the mark fit with what is known of William himself, for in 1773 he registered his own silver mark at the Birmingham assay office and from then until 1780 is recorded as sending silver furniture of his own for assaying. He would not, therefore, have needed the services of a London silversmith after 1773. The evidence, therefore, all points to our pistol and that in the Royal Armouries having been made at the very beginning of the 1770s, making them highly important and very early examples of the ‘English revival’ of the Lorenzoni system The major elements of the pistol are made of paktong, an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc which was imported from China in relatively small quantities during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This is also consistent with its having been made in Birmingham. The alloy, both durable and resistant to tarnishing, was used increasingly from the 1730s for the production of domestic items such as candlesticks, tableware and fire grates, and from the 1770s it was also used by gunmakers both for furniture and, as on this pistol, for barrels and other major structural elements. Both London gunmakers like Henry Nock and Birmingham makers, including members of the Grice, Ketland and Richards families are known to have used paktong but it
seems from surviving examples to have been more popular with Birmingham than with London makers. Our pistol is a very early example of its use by a gunmaker. Provenance
Private collection, USA
Literature
De Witt Bailey and Douglas A. Nie, English Gunmakers: The Birmingham and Provincial Gun Trade in the 18th and 19th Century, London, 1978, p. 38 Clay P. Bedford and Stephen V. Grancsay, Early Firearms of Great Britain and Ireland from the Collection of Clay P. Bedford, New York, 1971, pp. 39–41, 43–4, 47 nos 28, 33 H. L. Blackmore, Guns and Rifles of the World, London, 1965, 86, pls 673–4 H. L. Blackmore, English Pistols, London, 1985, p. 24 H. L. Blackmore, A Dictionary of London Gunmakers 1350-1850, Oxford, 1986, p. 104 C. Blair, Pistols of the World, London, 1968, p. 123 Nolfo di Carpegna, ‘A Summary of Note on CentralItalian Firearms of the Eighteenth Century’ in R. Held (ed.) Art, Arms and Armour: An International Anthology, Chiasso, 1979, pp. 336, 352 n. 31 Norman Dixon, Georgian Pistols: The Art and Craft of the Flintlock Pistol 1715–1840, London, 1971, pp. 16–17, 170–1, 175 Agostino Gaibi, Armi da Fuoco Italiane, Busto Arizio, 1978, pp. 244, 252, figs 418–9 Arthur Grimwade, London Goldsmiths 1697–1837: Their Marks and Lives, London, 1990, pp. 124–5, 670–1 J. F. Hayward, The Art of the Gunmaker, vol. 2, 1660–1830, London, 1963, p. 142 Robert Held, ‘Michele Lorenzoni’s Masterpiece’ in R. Held (ed.) Art, Arms and Armour: An International Anthology, Chiasso, 1979, pp. 366–79 H. Munson, Lee The Mortimer Gunmakers, 1753–1923, Lincoln RI, 1992, pp. 225, 232, 236–7, A. V. B. Norman and G. M. Wilson, Treasures from the Tower of London, London, 1982, p. 91 Keith Pinn, Paktong: The Chinese Alloy in Europe 1680– 1820, Woodbridge, 1999, pp. 33, 36, 38, 69–70, 127, 129 G. M. Wilson, The Vauxhall Operatory: A Century of Inventions before the Scientific Revolution, Leeds, 2010, pp. 18–31
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