another breech-loading post

[LJ]

Since breech-loading cannons are being discussed right now, here’s something I’ve recently been thinking about.

This is in the Castle in Newcastle. It was on loan to the Tower armouries until about 5 years ago, when it was returned. [while in the Tower, it was photographed by Matchlock for his post on breech loading 1450-1550].

It was mentioned by RC Clephan in a paper in 1904 on ‘Early Ordnance in Europe’. Clephan noted that the piece was sent to Newcastle in exchange with Woolwich. In fact, the exchange happened in 1863.

In Lefoy’s (1864) catalogue of the Rotunda the gun sent from Newcastle (wrought iron, of ‘comparatively modern date’) is numbered as Class I no. 20.

I haven’t yet seen the earlier Official Catalogues of the Rotunda, so cannot trace the history of this gun earlier than 1863.

But here is a puzzle. Why would somebody at Woolwich be prepared to send a 16th century iron breech-loading swivel gun in exchange for one ‘of comparatively modern date’? Lefoy’s catalogue shows that they didn’t have any guns like this one in Woolwich in 1864. Indeed, in later years the Tower Armouries had to borrow this one as a display example. And I don’t believe the curators at Woolwich were ever so stupid as to make such an unequal exchange.

When listing the wrought iron breech loading swivel guns in the Rotunda captured at the Taku Forts, Lefoy noted that their “construction is similar to that of European guns of the 15th Century”. So here is my question ... is this gun in fact not European at all, but Chinese in manufacture, and one that had been recently received at Woolwich from the Taku Forts.

If this sounds a stupid question, I would ask in turn whether anybody has made a close study of Chinese iron ordnance so that we can look at the details of manufacture and say for certain “this is Chinese” or “this is not Chinese”. I’ve looked at Needham’s book on Science in China, and that doesn’t give an answer. Can anybody point me to a reference ?