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W. Jeffery & Son, Plymouth

5.5K views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  Michelle Badham  
This is not an accurate way to date your W Jeffery & Son of Plymouth gun. The dates provided relate to the Dorchester branch of the Jeffery gun making family and even these are not accurate when compared to local trade and census records.

William Jeffery was active at 15 Borough, Farnham from 1839 to 1844 and moved from Surrey to Plymouth in about 1849, when he purchased a gun making business from John Harvey of Exeter. From 1849-54 his business was at 10 Lockyer Terrace, Plymouth and then at 52 Union Terrace from 1855-62. By the 1864 census it had moved to 12 George Street, Plymouth. He was personally active until 1869 (an example of a William Jeffery percussion pistol dating from about 1860 is held in the Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia).

From 1869 until at least 1917 the business was trading as W Jeffery & Son. That name and the George Street address are included in the book 'Experts on Guns and Shooting' by G. T. Teasdale-Buckell published in 1900, which also mentions that the current W Jeffery had been apprenticed to his father.

In 1933 Percy Jeffery of 4 Headland Park, Plymouth (trading as W Jeffery & Son, gun and cartridge makers) took a lease from an F J Coles of a 'shop, etc. at 3 Russell Street for ÂŁ100 per annum'. This could possibly have been the renewal of an existing lease as the business is believed to have been at that address since at least 1928, and possibly since 1917.

In about 1966 the business changed its name to A R & H V Jeffery and was operating from premises at 15 Old Town Street, Plymouth (which became part of the Drake Circus Shopping Centre development in the early 1970s) and then from 19/21 Old Town Street from about 1976 to 1982.

When you consider, however, that your gun seems to have Birmingham Proof House marks of the 1904 - 1925 type then this narrows it down to probably having been made between 1917 and 1925.