A Very Rare Ferguson Rifled Officers Holster Flintlock Pistol by Knubley. 19”overall, 12 ¼” sighted octagonal 22 bore barrel with 8 grooves, signed in gold at the breech ‘Knubley London’, with London Gunmakers proofs. Gold lined touch hole, tang engraved with military trophies, Ferguson breech with fast twist rising screw plug with grease cavity, bevelled lock signed ‘Knubley’, spoon shaped pan, swan necked cock, roller on frizzen spring. Half stocked in walnut with bag shaped chequered butt, cut for shoulder stock, steel mounts comprising butt cap with flower engraving, engraved trigger guard/ breech plug, decorated with a martial trophy on the bow. Horn fore end with silver key plates, turned ramrod pipes and horn tipped wooden ramrod.
Circa 1790.
Ferguson action pistols are very uncommon, in quite good condition.
Isaac de la Chaumette invented this form of breech-loading action in 1700 and patented it in England in 1721. Captain Patrick Ferguson patented his improved version of the La Chaumette system in 1776. He used a quick thread on the breech plug which enabled it to be lowered by one turn of the trigger guard, already used by Bidet in London in the 1720s, but he improved the action to prevent jamming after a few rounds mainly by cutting a recess into the plug for grease and vertical grooves across the screw threads.
Ferguson demonstrated his rifle most successfully to the Board of Ordnance and to the King, whom he told that he could fire seven shots in a minute although 'he would not undertake in that time to knock down above five of His Majesty's enemies'. Initially two rifles were made by Durs Egg, followed by the production of one hundred, which a company of Volunteer riflemen were trained to use. Under Ferguson's leadership the riflemen fought with distinction in the American War of Independence at the battle of Brandywine Creek in 1777, but Ferguson was badly wounded, and Sir William Howe, said to have been insulted because Ferguson's corps was raised without his knowledge, disbanded it, returning the men to their units. For the next two years Ferguson led raids with small bodies of troops in the Jerseys and the South and fought under Tarleton. He was killed at the battle of King's Mountain, in North Carolina, on 7 October 1780, the only British officer with over a thousand loyal Americans
John Knubley Gunmaker, Otley, Yorkshire, 1771. Sword Cutler & Gunmaker, 11 Charing Cross, 1786-93; 7 Charing Cross, 1794. Gunmaker to Prince of Wales, Duke of Clarence and Prince Edward. Contractor to Ordnance (canon locks, trade muskets, pistols and broadswords), 1790-4. Business taken over by Samuel Brunn, continued under Knubley name until 1797. Succeeded by John Mallett.