A Very Rare Wilkinson General Post Office Packet Boat Flintlock Pistol. 15 ½” overall, 9" 16 bore round brass barrel with London proof marks, flat border engraved military style lock plate stamped ‘Wilkinson’ & a crown over 2 inspectors mark, ring necked flat cock, regulation style brass mounts. With original ramrod.
A Light dragoon style pistol in good condition, belt hook removed (whilst in service).
Circa 1805
The General Post Office ran a small fleet of 16 armed cutters or Packet boats delivering mail to British outposts, Henry Nock and then Wilkinson had the contract to provide them with pistols.
See ‘British Ordnance Single Shot Pistols’ by Davies, Chisnall and Brooks, this pistol illustrated Chapter 7 page 33.
‘Those Entrusted with Arms’ by Frederick Wilkinson, 2002. Appendix 4, pages 254-258 plus pages 125-126 for details of Nock contract.
‘The Falmouth Packets 1689-1851’ by Tony Pawlyn, 2003.
‘The Falmouth Packets’ by David Mudd, 1978.
When Henry Nock died in 1804, his contract to supply these Packet Ship pistols appears to have been taken over by his successor James Wilkinson with a few ‘WILKINSON’ marked examples surviving of near identical pattern to Nock.
Only a handful of these extremely rare packet ship pistols have survived. Considerably rarer than the mail pistols made by Mortimer and Harding for land use. Appendix 4 in the book ‘Those Entrusted with Arms’ by Frederick Wilkinson, lists just two of Nock packet ship pistols and none by Wilkinson (page 256) compared to 66 recorded surviving Mail Coach pistols. This is hardly surprising as there were approximately 120-140 Mail Coaches but just 16 packet ships (1808 list) operating out of Falmouth with many wartime losses of packet ships and crews. Research reveals just 5 surviving packet ship pistols by Henry Nock - the three recorded in the above books one of which in museum condition was sold by West Street Antiques in 2011, plus one excellent condition example with a belt hook in a private collection in the USA, one (without a belt hook) owned by the Postal Museum and on loan to the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth.