BY EDWARD NEWTON, GRANTHAM, CIRCA 1755

Details

A Fine 14-Bore Flintlock Sporting Gun
By Edward Newton, Grantham, circa 1755
With two-stage hardened steel barrel retaining nearly all its original blued finish and much of the polished surface of the bore, turned girdle, silver fore-sight, and brass-lined touch-hole, the octagonal breech signed 'E. Newton Grantham' within an engraved rectangular panel and struck with Newton's own barrel marks, foliate engraved grooved tang, case-hardened border engraved flat bevelled lock signed on a foliate ribbon and with engraved stepped tail, the pan with water- drains and raised border (mainspring expertly replaced), figured walnut full stock (originally with take-down fore-end, the butt with minor bruises) carved in relief with a shell behind the barrel tang, engraved iron mounts including solid side-plate of French inspiration, the tang of the butt-plate engraved with a martial trophy, pierced and chiselled escutcheon, three engraved iron ramrod-pipes, and later horn-tipped ramrod, the left side of the butt with an old glued label inscribed 'This gun was (made for) the Duke of Kingston, the barrel of peculiar composition to prevent Rust....'
42in. (106.7cm.) barrel

Provenance

The Duchess of Kingston, deceased, Mr. Christie's house sale at Thoresby Park, 10 June 1789, lot 65 ('A long fowling piece, by Newton of Grantham')

Literature

W. Keith Neal and D.H.L Back, Great British Gunmakers 1740-1790, p. 85, plates 227-229

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

The original owner, Evelyn Pierrepont (1711-1773), 2nd Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull, of Thoresby Park, Nottinghamshire (renamed Thoresby Hall in 1957), succeeded his grandfather in 1726, and was made a Knight of the Garter in 1741, as well as one of the Lords of the Bedchamber. Upon the outbreak of the Jacobite rising in 1745 he raised, at his own expense, a regiment of light horse which distinguished itself at the Battle of Culloden. Horace Walpole described him as 'a very weak man, of the greatest beauty, and finest person in England'. All his honours became extinct upon his death without issue, and his estates devolved upon his nephew, Charles Meadows, who was subsequently created Earl Manvers
Neal and Back (loc. cit) describe the merits of this gun, among them its ability to shoot a pigeon flying at 70 yards

For information on the maker (1692?-1764), who appears to have trained both Robert Wogdon and John Twigg, see Tom Wimsey, 'Newton of Grantham', J.A.A.S., vol. XVI, no. 5 (September 2000), pp. 281-289

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