W.R. Pape

Recalling the movers and shakers who made the late 19th and early 20th Centuries so special for double-gun enthusiasts, scholars of British guns tend to rattle off names like Frederick Beesley, John Robertson and William Wellington Greener. Yet only one Victorian gunmaker can lay claim to having invented a device used to this day by all of the others. William Rochester Pape, who patented choke boring, would have his name added to the list but for one detail: He was a bit of a scallywag.
    Pape was born in Amble, Northumberland, in 1831 in the age of flintlock muzzleloaders. He established himself as a gunmaker at age 27 without having served an apprenticeship. The texture of his personal life is unknown, but aspects of his business life suggest that he was an individual who could be less than scrupulous when it came to self-promotion. For example, Pape’s first gun, Serial No. 100, was built in 1857, yet the company letterhead claimed “established 1830,” a year before Pape was born. It was no hyperbole, however, that the business ended up lasting 80 years and producing 13,446 guns.
    Pape’s North of England Gun Works was located across from Central Station in Newcastle upon Tyne. Newcastle was an industrial city black with coal soot strung along the northern bank of an evil-smelling river, its industries dominated by mining and shipbuilding. Although these were days of invention and growing prosperity for many, abject, crushing poverty was the lot of many more, and the gulf between the rich and poor was as great as it had ever been. But Pape was middle class, an urbanite who lived a good deal in the country and yielded to no one in his appreciation of a good pointing dog. He organized Britain’s first major dog show and gave his own guns as prizes.
    In the late 1860s and early ’70s Pape patented a series of improvements to gun designs, including a snap-action breechloader in 1866, mechanically retracting firing pins for a hammergun in 1867, and a toplever in 1874. Often when we look back at the development of the shotgun, it appears that one design evolved from another in seamless progression. The truth, more often than not, is that a path was made through a series of disparate projects—some successful, some not. In fact, none of Pape’s ideas—save one—became industry standards, and they fell into desuetude when superior designs appeared. The Purdey underbolt of 1863, the Stanton rebounding lock circa 1867, and the Scott toplever and spindle from 1865 all made Pape’s improvements obsolete. So how did an untrained gunmaker whose inventions were generally failures patent choke boring? The story is nearly impossible to piece together from the scant documents about Pape’s life that survive. Recently, however, evidence has come to light that suggests a likely explanation. But first a little background information.
    At about the time Pape was establishing himself as a gunmaker, the correspondence columns of the fieldsports newspapers were attempting to decide which was better, the established muzzleloader or the freshly introduced “French” breechloader with its self-contained pinfire cartridge. In essence, the passions and pocketbooks of rich sportsmen had spurred new technical developments and ignited the debate. Only a head-to-head competition at standard ranges monitored by a disinterested party could settle the matter.
    The unbiased individual turned out to be Dr. J.H. Walsh, editor of The Field. The first trial was held in April 1858 at Ashburnham Park, Chelsea, today a fashionable area of London that is home to celebrities like Mick Jagger but at the time was on the fringes of what was considered reputable. Ashburnham Park was opposite Cremorne Pleasure Gardens, where a sport might enjoy “operetta, burlesque and ballet” during the day and a child prostitute at night. No prestigious West End makers competed in the trial, because they had everything to lose and nothing to gain. For the most part the trial—set up essentially to compare recoil, penetration and patterns—was dominated by provincials like Pape who were looking to establish reputations. Pape finished second and third in the 12-bore class and first in the 13-bore class. All of the winning guns were muzzleloaders. Despite this, advocates of breechloaders insisted on a new trial, calling the results of the first “indecisive.”
    A second trial was planned for late June 1859 but was rescheduled when J.H. Walsh agreed to judge Britain’s first dog show in Newcastle upon Tyne. The entries in the dog show were restricted to setters and pointers, and the organizer was none other than W.R. Pape, who as previously mentioned offered his own guns as prizes. As with other Pape projects, a sense of doubt and unease fell on the entire proceedings when it was discovered that the owner of the winning pointer was a judge in the setter class and the owner of the winning setter a judge in the pointing class.
    The second Field gun trial was held in early July, and Pape finished first in the all-important 12-bore class with a muzzleloader. But by the 1860s even the skeptics were beginning to concede the advantages of breechloaders, and in 1866 when The Field organized yet another trial, muzzleloaders had all but disappeared from the scene. This time the competition was mainly between pinfire and centerfire breechloaders, and once again Pape was successful. Clearly he held some advantage, and a careful reading of his 1866-patent snap-action reveals that his guns were tapered at the muzzle: “The invention further relates to an improvement in the manufacture and construction of the bore of the barrels of breech-loading and other shotguns, instead of making the bore cylindrical throughout, I propose firstly to bore the barrel or barrels through one size smaller than the true bore to be formed; I then rebore the barrel with one full size of number larger than the former, beginning at the breech or open end but continuing only within one inch or thereabouts of the muzzle end; I then finish the bore by a taper from the conclusion of the larger bore direct to the very extremity of the muzzle. By this improved construction of the bore, stronger and closer shooting will be acquired besides other advantages.”
    Clearly then Pape was operating at a huge advantage, and it’s easy to understand how he came to dominate the trials. What is less obvious is where he discovered this edge. A clue can be seen in Ward’s Newcastle directory for 1859 to 1860. Squeezed between advertisements for a “commercial and family hotel” and “steam made confectionary for all classes” a gunmaker named Joseph Lee “begs to call particular attention to the fact that the four guns which gained the first four prizes at the recent trial at Ashburnham Park were made entirely by him.”
    Joseph Lee was likely a barrel borer that Pape had recruited in Birmingham, and it was his skill creating choke-bored guns that made Pape’s reputation. Naturally, Pape never credited Lee, and Lee faded into obscurity. Pape forever claimed himself as “The original inventor and patentee of choke boring,” and thereafter “barrels rebored to W.R. Pape’s principle” appeared on his gun case labels. Despite Pape’s claim, there was clearly no “Eureka!” moment; the choke was a development rather than an invention, with much empirical honing and patterning—most of it likely coming from Lee. Once the choke-bored gun’s advantages became known, the concept became ingrained, although Pape evidently thought little enough of it that he failed to include it when registering his snap action with the American patent office in 1867.
    His success allowed regional expansion, and he opened branch premises at 29 Fawcett Street in Sunderland and at Bondgate in Alnwick, a market town best known today as a location for the “Harry Potter” movies. An advertisement in the Alnwick Mercury claimed that Pape was “the only Manufacturer of Gun Barrels and Locks in the North . . . .”
    In 1875 The Field held yet another trial, but by this time the choke-boring cat was out of the bag, with gunmakers such as W.W. Greener having further developed the concept. Still, Pape was as determined as ever to uphold his bogus reputation. He introduced specially doctored cartridges with additional pellets secreted in the wads. When these balled dangerously and punctured the screen holding the paper targets, he was discovered and discredited. Nevertheless, Pape claimed victory because of a gun that he had entered in the name of Davidson that had been a success in its class. Even today Pape guns can be found with the dubious legend “W.R. Pape, Newcastle-on-Tyne. Winner of the London Gun Trials in 1858, 1859, 1866 & 1875” inscribed in the top rib.
    Late in 1885 an officer of the Imperial Japanese Navy entered Pape’s premises. (At the time Japan was commissioning numerous warships in northeastern England in anticipation of the looming war with Russia.) He bought a “Martini Henry large ship rifle with bayonet,” which Pape’s records show had been acquired from the Braendlin Armoury in Birmingham and was delivered “to the Japanese gunboat down the Tyne” on October 29. With typical chutzpah, Pape turned this modest sale of a single rifle he hadn’t even built into a public-relations coup, thereafter claiming to be a “Military Contractor to the Japanese Government.” He also manufactured ordinary 12-bore paper cartridges that featured the unauthorized use of the Japanese Imperial Seal, the chrysanthemum (familiar to collectors of Arisaka rifles) surrounded by a strap line that read “Contractor to the Mikado of Japan.”
    Pape catalogs and advertisements show numerous types, features and options from cheap keepers’ hammerguns to best hammerless ejectors. Pape was broadly, grossly, generally a bespoke gunmaker at least in the Victorian period. He could make or have made anything his contemporaries could.
John Henry Walsh, editor of The Field, once said, “The price of percussion guns varies from four pounds or even less to fifty or sixty guineas, which Purdey, Lancaster, Manton, and one or two other fashionable London makers obtain for their articles. I confess that if I were offered my choice, regardless of price, I should select one of Mr. Purdey’s make. But though I thus place them at the head of the list, I would not give five pounds more for a gun of his make than one built by Pape of Newcastle.” Pape, to this day, is occasionally referred to as the “Purdey of the North.”
    I own a breechloading hammergun signed by Pape that is superbly constructed, delightfully balanced and tastefully engraved. It features all of the important Pape patents and is better built than American guns of the same vintage, yet it is referred to as a gun of “third quality” in Pape’s records.
    I also have two 20th Century boxlocks that were retailed by Pape but almost certainly built by W&C Scott in Birmingham. Both are superb guns. But Pape was a provincial retailer and out of necessity carried guns for every strata of society. All guns bearing the Pape name should be evaluated individually; they run the gamut.
    Pape died in April 1923, a few days after being struck by a motor van outside his premises on Collingwood Street. His son, Victor, speaking at the inquest, said his father had enjoyed good hearing and eyesight and had been an active man despite his 92 years. The business that Pape began lingered on until 1937.
    William Rochester Pape was a controversial figure whose name will be forever connected to choke boring. He also was a man with an eye for opportunity who understood the importance of nurturing a public profile. Pape, through his promotional skills and personal drive, honed his way into the circle of eminent Victorian gunmakers, yet his routine controversies likely would make any self-respecting modern gunmaker choke.

Author’s Note: Today the Pape records are owned by Rodney Ford, in England. Owners of Pape guns may discover more about their prizes by sending £35 to Rodney Ford, 51 South End, Bassingbourn, Royston, Herts, England SG8 5NL.

Douglas Tate is an Editor at Large for Shooting Sportsman.