Wm & Jn Rigby
Gunmakers
Dublin
Featured Pistol 10477
Over & Under Turnabout 40 bore Percussion Belt Pistol sold in 1853 to E.Fisher, 4th Dragoon Guards.
This pistol being one of a pair. Its companion 10476 being absent. They sold for £7.7.0 each.*
Calderwood James 22 Duke Street
Calderwood Thomas. 14 Earl Street N.
Clarke William 207 Britain Street. Gt.
Dowling Henry 67 Dame Street
Dowling William 31 Bishop Street
Kavanagh James 12 Dame Street
Kavanagh William junior 12 Dame Street
Parkinson John 17 Arran Quay
Pattison M&J 18 Crampton Court
Rigby William & John 24 Suffolk Street
Truelock E & Son 9 Dawson Street
Turner Thomas. 6 King Street. N.
Walsh John 29 Ormond Quay. Upper
Reverse side showing belt hook, magazine stock release and side mounted swivel ramrod.
Serial number and offset trigger.
We are always pleased to feature or buy Rigby pistols.
* Great Irish Gunmakers Messrs Rigby 1760-1869 by D.H.L.Back. Pub'd 1992.
Dave Stroud. ramrodantiques.co.uk
This historic pistol, with connections to the charge of the Heavy Brigade at Balaclava, was listed as one of a pair of 40 bore of over and under two-shot pistols at cost 7 guineas with additional side bars,(belthooks, popular with mounted officers) 6 shillings, sold by Messrs Rigby, Irish gun makers, to E.Fisher of the 4th Dragoons in 1853. Fisher's full name was Edward Rowe Fisher-Rowe,born in 1832. He attained the rank of Captain in the 4th(Royal Irish)Dragoon Guards and was present in the charge of the Heavy Brigade at Balaclava on 25th October 1854 during the Crimean War. It's entirely feasible that he was carrying this pistol during the charge as he had purchased it and the missing other of the pair, not long before he and the 4th Dragoons were sent to the Crimea. His letters home from Balaclava were privately published and several extracts from them have been published in other publications.He wrote in one."Hurrah for the Crimea! We are off tomorrow. Fine country, people very friendly. Take Sevastopol in a week or so, and then into winter quarters". Captain Edward Rowe Fisher-Rowe married Lady Victoria Isabella Liddell, daughter of Henry Thomas Liddell, 1st Earl of Ravensworth and Isabella Horatia Seymour, on 29 July 1874. He suffered severe back pain for years,following a hunting accident and eventually became bedridden, believing it was placing a burden on his wife, took his own life on his 77th birthday on 9th November 1909 by cyanide poisoning. see https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MEX19100103.2.45
ReplyDeleteIt mentions that the "captain was one of the slender band of Balaclava survivors and had been a sufferer for years."