¹ The Museum of Artillery at Woolwich has a large collection of Asian-made firearms and other weapons, but for Africa they have only swords, spears, and battle-axes.

² ‘Artifex’ and ‘Opifex’, The Causes of Decay in a British Industry, London, 1907, 163, attribute the arms industry of ‘Cabul’ and ‘Foo-chow’ to a British refusal to allow guns be shipped there. British bans on ·303 calibre sporting guns in India, lest they should purchased by rebels who would then use army ammunition in them, led to a petition by Birmingham gunmakers in 1899, mentioned by Artifex and Opifex, pp. 197–8,Google Scholar pointing Out that rifles of lesser calibres could be altered to take ·303 cartridges ‘by an average native workman with a very simple tool’. While no doubt exaggerated, this statement puts many assertions about the difficulties of making or repairing guns in a new perspective. Artifex and Opifex were gunmakers, being C. E. Greener and W. O. Greener, grandsons of William Greener, a patriarchal figure in British gunmaking. Their book was an argument for government aid to Birmingham gunmakers, specifically by repealing all legislation against the gun trade and allowing to every Briton his right to possess a revolver. W. O. Greener also wrote, under the name of Wirt, Gerrare, A Bibliography of Guns and Shooting, Westminster, 1894, which has been used as the ultimate source for this article.Google Scholar

³ John, Braddock, A Memoir on Gunpowder, etc., Madras and London, 1832, 2, 24–29, III. Braddock/s instructions for powder-making read like those in a modem cookery book.Google Scholar

⁴ Tables of ingredients for various nations are to be found in the article on ‘Gunpowder’ in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition, 1911.Google Scholar

⁴ George, J. N., English Guns and Rifles, Plantersvile, N.C., 239.Google Scholar

⁶ Arthur Woodward, ‘Some Notes on Gun Flints’, and Hamilton, T. M., ‘Additional Comments on Gunflints’, in Missouri Archaeologist, Columbus, Mo., vol. 22, 12. 1960, are the best sources on this subject. Though 1970 telephone directories show flint-knapping still undertaken at an address in Brandon, tantalizingly enough at a house or works called ‘Lagos Palm’, it is understood that the practice has again been discontinued. This may radically alter the position in those areas where flintlocks are in regular use. These areas are mainly within Africa–the present writer remembers seeing a musket ball removed from the corpse of a lioness, shot in self-defence, in 1962. But new flint-lock muskets were sold in the Province of Quebec until the early 1950s, and no doubt elsewhere well.Google Scholar

⁷ Smith, B. M. D., ‘The Galtons of Birmingham: Quaker Gun Merchants and Bankers, 1702–1831’, Business History, ix, 2, 07 1967, 136.Google Scholar

⁸ Hanson, C. E., The Northwest Gun, Lincoln, Neb., 1956, 36, 74.Google Scholar

⁹ Artifex and Opifex, Causes of Decay, 124.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Artifex and Opifex, Causes of Decay, 130, quoting S. B. Ailport, presiding at the 1891 annual meeting of the Birmingham Gun Trade.Google Scholar

¹¹ Maxim, H. S., My Life, London, 1915, 236.Google Scholar

¹² Books for gun collectors virtually ignore trade guns of any sort, and completely ignore African trade guns; some are primarily concerned with firearms as works of art. The cheapest introduction is probably Wilkinson, F., Guns (Hamlyn all-colour paperbacks), London, 1970,Google Scholar and for library use there is Peterson, H. L. (Editor), Encyclopaedia Firearms, London, 1964.Google Scholar

¹³ Gooding, S. J., ‘A Preliminary Study of the Trade Guns Sold by the Hudson/s Bay Company’, Missouri Archaeologist, 22, 12 1960, 88. The Hudson/s Bay Company first copied ‘ye African Compa’ by buying Dutch muskets, but the quality was poor and they switched to London gunmakers.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Artifex and Opifex, Causes of Decay, 139.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Peterson, H. L., Encyclopaedia of Firearms, 138, suggests that fowling in Europe began with small farmers ‘who increased their food supply both through consuming the birds themselves and through preventing them from consuming crops’. This later became a sport, as did fox-hunting and stag-running, but still endowed with an aura of virtue. That football evolved from kicking pigs to death or cricket from stoning crows is less certain.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Artifex and Opifex, Causes of Decay, 128.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Smith, B. M. D., ‘The Galtons of Birmingham’, 138.Google Scholar

¹⁸ George, J. N., English Guns and Rifles, 240.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Livrustkammaren (Journal of the Royal Armoury, Stockholm), v, 1950,Google Scholar Summary of Alm, J., ‘Handeisgevar’, 105, with illustrations.Google Scholar

²⁰ Hanson, C. E., ‘Trade Guns’, Encyclopaedia of Firearms, 322.Google Scholar

²¹ Blackmore, H. D., British Military Firearms 1650–1850, London, 1961, 139.Google Scholar

²² Harris, C., (Editor), The History of the Birmingham Gun-Barrel Proof House, Birmingham (1946?), 27.Google Scholar

²³ Parsons, B. (Attributed), Observations on the Manufacture of Firearms for Military Purposes, etc., London, 1829, 45–46,Google Scholar Parsons/s reliability is attacked in an anonymous history of Birmingham quoted by Smith, B. M. D., ‘The Galtons of Birmingham’, 139 n., but the author of this tract, if he really was Parsons, seems thoroughly informed and impartial.Google Scholar

²⁴ Greener, W., The Present Proof Company. The Bane of the Gun Trade: A Letter Addressed to the Masters, and Journeymen Gun Makers of the Kingdom, Birmingham, 1845, 4.Google Scholar

²⁵ Greener, W., The Science of Gunnery, London, 1846, 96, 196–200.Google Scholar

²⁶ Artifex and Opifex, Causes of Decay, 128.Google Scholar

²⁷ Smith, B. M. D., ‘The Galtons of Birmingham’, 140. The nature of the industry is demonstrated by the trade directories of the period. In 1850, as one typical year, Birmingham had 124 gunmakers but 368 sub-contractors listed. By comparison London, already declining and superior only in the quality trade, had 85 gunmakers and a mere 45 sub-contractors. Many London ‘gunmakers’ were actually dealers who had guns made up for them. These directories provide fairly complete lists from which any gunmaker may be identified.Google Scholar

²⁸ Harris, C., The History of the Birmingham Gun-Barrel Proof House, 24.Google Scholar

²⁹ Parsons, B., Observations on the Manufacture of Firearms, 23.Google Scholar

³⁰ Harris, C., The History of the Birmingham Gun-Barrel Proof House, 152.Google Scholar

³¹ Artifex and Opifex, Causes of Decay, 227–8.Google ScholarThe Victoria County History of Warwick-shire, II, 230, gives a figure of 6, II 26, 305 barrels proofed in England between 1855 and 1864, but this is artificially inflated by the Crimean War and the American Civil War.Google Scholar

³² Artifex and Opifex, Causes of Decay, 279.Google Scholar

³³ Goodman, J. D., ‘The Birmingham Gun Trade’, article in Timmins, S. (Editor), The Resources, Products, and Industrial History of Birmingham and the Midland Hardware District, London, 1866, 415, 419.Google Scholar

³⁴ Artifex and Opifex, Causes of Decay, 129. By inference we may assume that all twenty million Birmingham Africa muskets did go to Africa, but the authors are not clear on this point; certainly the vast majority of them went to Africa. Whether there really were twenty million may be doubted, though the authors seem generally reliable their arithmetic, if not in their politics. Extrapolation from such figures as are currently available leads, however, to a rough total of only thirteen million for Birmingham, and rather more than the three million stated for Liege.Google Scholar

³⁵ Artifex and Opifex, Causes of Decay, 139.Google Scholar

³⁶ Artifex and Opifex, Causes of Decay, 18.Google Scholar

³⁷ Goodman, J. D., ‘The Birmingham Gun Trade’, 408.Google Scholar

³⁸ Greener, W., The Present Proof Company, 7.Google Scholar

³⁹ Artifex and Opifex, Causes of Decay, 129.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Artifex and Opifex, Causes of Decay, 129.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Goodman, J. D., ‘The Birmingham Gun Trade’, 420.Google Scholar

⁴² Artifex and Opifex, Causes of Decay, 131.Google Scholar

⁴³ Artifex and Opifex, Causes of Decay, 285.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Whether it is better to use a musket or a rifle depends partly on whether one is hunting or being hunted. In open country the range of a rifle is an advantage. In bush country range is little use, but one is more likely to be attacked by wild animals. A small rifle bullet passing through an lion or even a wart-hog at high speed may fatally injure it, but an ounce musket ball is more likely to stop the animal in its tracks. This factor may partially explain the early switch to rifles in Southern Africa as distinct from areas of forest.

⁴⁵ Board of Trade, Annual Statement of the Trade of the United Kingdom, London, 1831 onwards, provides valuable statistics for the export of firearms to each African territory and may prove vital in more local studies.Google Scholar