The British sporting gun industry stands at the intersection of two worlds. Its past is in the traditions of craft – careful woodwork for a hand-finished gun stock, fine metal engraving for the action. Its present is in high-tech. Without computer-controlled metalworking machinery, it’s nigh impossible to make parts of the strength and precision required for guns, particularly at an affordable price. Finding workers that can straddle these worlds is difficult. So the Gunmakers’ Company Charitable Trust (GCCT) is trying to help. In 2009, it awarded its second grant to Westley Richards, established in 1812 and based in Birmingham.
Founded in 2003, the GCCT is a charity registered with Britain’s Charities Commission with the goal helping to improve skills in the gunmaking trade. It has been successful in raising a small, but still growing, endowment, and in 2007 it awarded its first grant for training to Watson Brothers, a London-based gunmaker located near Liverpool Street Station.
Watson Brothers wanted to recruit a trainee with engineering experience in hopes that he could bring general metalworking skills to gunmaking. Unfortunately, the salaries demanded by experienced engineers were more than a trainee would be worth to the firm during the long period when he would be learning his trade – and more than tiny Watson Brothers could subsidize from other revenues. Enter the GCCT. When Watson Brothers hired a qualified welder to re-train as a gunmaker, GCCT provided a grant to make up the difference between his salary and that given in the past to school-leavers taken on as apprentice gunmakers.
Westley Richards has had a long association with London, having set up a shop in Bond Street in 1814 managed by William Bishop, “the Bishop of Bond Street”. It has always been committed to innovation and is dedicated to craftsmanship. The skills and qualities expressed by a Westley Richards gunmaker come about through a combination of innate ability, years of training and experience, endless patience, and a determination to achieve faultless perfection. The company has long trained many of its own craftsmen through an apprenticeship programme and the GCCT is pleased to be able to assist in maintaining this tradition.
Members of the Livery will oversee training to ensure that a well-rounded range of gunmaking skills are mastered. At the end of training, by demonstrating skills to the Proof House Committee the trainee can be recognised as a fully competent gunmaker – and earn the Freedom of the Gunmakers’ Company.
The GCCT has also provided a range of smaller grants for training, travel and education for those working in gunmaking and related trades, including support for education for conservators working in arms, armour and other metals at the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Glasgow Museum.In addition, the GCCT makes grants to people connected with the gun trade who have fallen on difficult times. It has also made grants to support the charitable activities of the City of London and the Borough of Tower Hamlets.
Our charity is continually on the lookout for ways in which it might help to improve gunmaking skills and welcomes suggestions from the trade. If you have a suggestion, please write to The Clerk, at The Proof House, 48-50 Commercial Road, London E1 1LP. Equally, if you feel you might be willing to make a donation that would be even more welcome, and would best be accomplished by contacting the Clerk, as above.