Product Details
BOSS & CO.
A 12-BORE ROTARY-UNDERLEVER HAMMERGUN, serial no. 2933,
30in. nitro reproved damascus barrels (left wall at 17), the rib engraved '1' and 'BOSS & CO. 73. ST JAMES'S STREET. LONDON.', 2 1/2in. chambers, bored approx. true cyl. in both, carved percussion fences, rebounding back-action locks with dolphin hammers, fine border and acanthus scroll engraving, brushed bright finish, 14 1/4in. figured stock including steel buttplate, weight 7lb., in its makers brass-cornered leather case
Provenance: The makers have kindly confirmed that this gun was completed in August 1871 as No.1 of a pair, for Col. Lloyd-Lindsay.
Research would indicate this could be Brigadier General Robert James Loyd-Lindsay, 1st Baron Wantage.
Loyd-Lindsay was born in 1832, the second son of Lieutenant General Sir James Lindsay, 1st Baronet and Anne, daughter of Sir Coutts Trotter, 1st Baronet. In 1858, he married The Honorable Harriet Sarah Jones-Loyd, the only surviving child and heiress of Samuel Jones-Loyd, 1st and last Baron Overstone, one of the richest men in the country, who endowed the couple with a considerable fortune and the Lockinge Estate near Wantage as a wedding present.
Lindsay fought as a captain in the Scots (Fusilier) Guards during the Crimean War. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions on 20 September 1854 at the Battle of the Alma and 5 November at the Battle of Inkerman. The London Gazette described his actions as follows:
When the formation of the line of the Regiment was disordered at Alma, Captain Lindsay stood firm with the Colours, and by his example and energy, greatly tended to restore order. At Inkerman, at a most trying moment, he, with a few men, charged a party of Russians, driving them back, and running one through the body himself.
On 9 November 1858 Lindsay was appointed as Equerry to HRH The Prince of Wales and served as such before resigning on 7 February 1859. The brief period as Equerry was due to his engagement and impending marriage to The Honorable Harriet Sarah Jones Loyd. The couple were then known as Loyd-Lindsay.
Loyd-Lindsay was later involved in the volunteer movement, serving as Colonel of the Royal Berkshire Volunteers, and subsequently Brigadier-General of the Home Counties Brigade. He was one of the first recipients of the Volunteer Officers' Decoration. He was also Lieutenant Colonel of the Honourable Artillery Company from 13 November 1866 to 17 August 1881.
Loyd-Lindsay sat as Conservative Party Member of Parliament for Berkshire from 1865 until 1885 and served under Lord Beaconsfield as Financial Secretary to the War Office between 1877 and 1880. He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in 1881. In 1885, he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Wantage, of Lockinge in the County of Berkshire. He then served as Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire from 1886 until his death. Having been initiated as a freemason, passed and raised in Malta en route to the Crimea in 1854, he became Provincial Grand Master of Berkshire from 1898 until his death in 1901.
He was appointed the first Chairman of the Council of the National Rifle Association of the United Kingdom on 25 November 1890.
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Estimate £2,000-2,500
S2 - Sold as a Section 2 Firearm under the 1968 Firearms Act