A beautiful cased double barrel underlever 12 bore black powder shotgun by Francis Brebner.

Browned damascus barrels with beautiful figuring, and a nice clean simple action with light engraving on the hammers and small floral engravings at the hinge point. Beautifully figured wood stock with checkered grip and a thick butt plate. Action is smooth and crisp with both hammers holding full and half cock, with the half cock acting as safety.

Fitted in its original leather case with cleaning rod, oil bottle, small metal tool kit, and a cleaning line with a bunch of fiber wadding.

The case is marked with the original owner's name, and he was quite the interesting fellow.

Joseph Richardson (1830-1902) was a Liberal Party politician in England. He was the son of Caleb Richardson, a member of an old Quaker family. He had several brothers, including Edwin Richardson and Stansfield Richardson, who both served as Mayors of Sunderland.

Joseph Richardson was the head of the firm of Messrs. Richardson, Duck and Company, one of the chief shipbuilding firms on the Tees River, which in 1852 turned out the first two iron vessels launched on the river. He was also largely interested in the Durham collieries and iron works.

Richardson was five times Mayor of the borough of Stockton-on-Tees, including at the time of his death in 1902. He was a Deputy Lieutenant of Durham and a vice-chairman of the Durham County Council.

He was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for South East Durham at the 1892 general election. He was defeated at the 1895 general election by the Liberal Unionist Sir Henry Havelock-Allan, who he had ousted in 1892. Havelock-Allen died in 1897 and Richardson won the resulting by-election in 1898, but lost his seat again at the 1900 general election.

The case has various travel tags from Waddington, a customs tag from the United States, and a 1949 tag from a gunmaker in London. There are also two medals (one 'silver' one 'bronze') commemorating the opening of the Victoria Bridge in 1887, with the Man himself listed as Mayor on both medals. Also included is a shot bag that belonged to another family member who inherited the shotgun. It's part of its story so they're staying together!

The case does have some condition issues, and would definitely benefit from going to visit someone who is experienced at restoring leather pieces.

All in all a lovely quality English shotgun in a beautiful case with a ton of back story to go with it!

SN#309

Canadian Class Non-Restricted

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Item Number: 503-1

Item ID: 26176

Category: Long Guns