When I first saw this revolver I thought someone had been fooling around with Webley’s Mark I service revolver. It didn’t look right and had features seen on much later variations. Whilst the frame was a Mark I with its distinctive humped grip, it was fitted with a long fluted cylinder along with a trigger spur both only seen on early Mark III commercial revolvers. The barrel too wasn’t correct for a Mark I, missing the large cylinder release screw on the left side instead being fitted with a cylinder retainer cam seen on the Mark III revolvers. My biggest shock came when I saw a Mark II stamping. This wasn’t a Mark II, it looked nothing like one.

The revolver is a commercial six shot top break Webley service revolver chambered in .455, the standard British service cartridge from 1887 though to post WW1. On the left frame below the cylinder is marked “Webley’s Mark II Patents” alongside the famous Webley flying bullet trademark. The right side of the frame is marked with an unusual “O” stamp along with the very low serial number of 153. The address “P. Webley & Son Birmingham” is marked on the rib of the 4” barrel with a caliber 455 on the left side of the top strap and the serial 153 just above the barrel hinge.

When pressing the side lever and lowering the barrel the cartridge extractor rises correctly before snapping back into place. The cylinder face shows the 153 serial number and the extractor star was of the single pin type first seen on Mark III revolvers. The rear breech face showed also showed a modification with a steel plate dovetailed and screwed in place. This improvement is seen on Mark II revolvers along with those Mark I’s that have been upgraded to Mark I*.

The cylinder retainer cam fitted to the left hinge was a design patented in 1891 and fitted to Webley WG Model 1892 revolvers. It was also used on early Mark III commercials but later military Mark III’s were fitted with an improved version where the retainer extended completely beneath the cylinder pin and was secured to the right frame.

Externally, the cylinder was odd. In addition to the long flutes there were partly machined locking slots along the edge of the flutes in addition to the main locking slots. I assumed it was something to do with half cock system but soon came to the conclusion they were of no purpose whatsoever. The cylinder locking lugs didn’t touch these half slots at all. Perhaps Webley was using up incorrectly machined cylinders and lengthening the cylinder flutes was a method with which to hide them.

The half cock system seems robust and works well. The rebounding hammer can be withdrawn to the half cock position by either thumb or trigger and locks securely in place. To fire, then either continue withdrawing the hammer back to the firing position with the thumb or pull back fully with the trigger for rapid fire. The small trigger spur appears to work by pressing on a half cock sear and causing the hammer to fall. The big question with this half cock is why? What’s the point? The hammer was already of a rebounding type that locked firmly in place after firing. To me the half cock seems a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

I was confused, the half cocking system is usually seen on early Webley Mark III commercial revolvers. These had the same long fluted cylinder and trigger spur as my example but have the rounded birdshead grip. They’re also clearly stamped as “MARK III” but are only found with low serial numbers under about 1500. After that the self cocking feature disappears.

It was clear from my research and from speaking to other collectors, that these half cock Webley’s are not well understood although there was some thoughts that they may have been supplied to South Africa or the Boer Republics.

I managed to track down three more examples identical to mine with serials 47, 91 and 170 which proved my revolver wasn’t a one of but rather part of a larger batch. Also interesting to see that two of these, 91 and 170 also showed this strange “O” stamp on the right frame just like my number 153.

I turned to the books without much luck until I picked up a copy of Ron Bester’s “Small Arms of the Anglo Boer War” that had been sitting in my library hardly read for a decade.

Thomas Webley visited southern Africa several times and was in the Transvaal in mid-1894 and, in July 1894 he offered the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR) government 200 Mark II revolvers. He had previously supplied the ZAR with an order of 200 revolvers in early 1894 and although the type is uncertain, they were most likely Mark I’s. Some negotiation followed his July offer but on 20^th November 1894 General Jobert approved an order for 200 Webley Mark II revolvers to be delivered to Pretoria. The revolvers arrived at the Central Magazine, Pretoria on 5^th June 1895 and were approved and accepted on the same day. The author then writes,

“What is really amazing about this batch of revolvers is that, quite uncharacteristically their serial numbers were recorded viz. numbers 41, 50 through to 250 (excepting numbers 82 and 246)”.

That was it. My revolver, serial 153, must have been one of them. The book had been extremely well researched with numerous citations to documents held in the Transvaal Archives and I had no doubt that the information was correct.

I still couldn’t understand why a Mark II on a Mark I frame. It’s worth noting that the official War Department Mark II pattern wasn’t sealed until 10^th October 1894 and wasn’t announced in the official List of Changes until June 1895 yet Thomas Webley offered Mark II’s to the Z.A.R. government in July 1894. Perhaps Webley had been working on developing the Mark II prior to this time and was in the process of going through a War Department assessment that a resulted in the humped grip being rejected in preference for the rounded grip. The half cock may have been similarly rejected as unnecessary on a service revolver or alternatively, perhaps the ZAR government specifically requested the half cock feature.

What is clear is that the serial numbering for these new Mark II’s restarted at 1 although once the official British Mark II had been approved the serial numbering of those supplied to the War Department changed to follow on from the previously supplied Mark I’s.

Thomas Webley received other orders from the Transvaal. A document dated 20^th December 1895 has Webley thanking the government for an order of 500 Webley revolvers and mentions that he has made some improvements to the revolvers. This was just prior to the Jameson Raid, where British colonial troops launched a failed raid into the Transvaal with the intention of triggering an uprising. As a result of this the Transvaal government realized they were under armed and increased the Webley order to 1000. It’s likely that this order comprised the half cocking Mark III revolvers with the improved rounded grip.

There’s still lots of unanswered questions around these half cock Webley’s. Although Webley’s records have been lost many of the answers seemingly lie in the Transvaal Archives. Modern South Africa has a very good searchable online database listing these documents. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like the documents have been scanned and are easily available but the document descriptions are interesting in themselves. They’re also mostly written in Afrikaans although with modern technology like Google Translate this presents less of a problem than it once did.  I also thoroughly recommend the book “Small Arms of the Anglo Boer War” to anyone interested in this topic. Although out of print it can be found on online booksellers. It certainly helped me understand the provenance of my most unusual Webley.

Further Reading:

• Bester & Associates, Small Arms of the Anglo Boer War 1899 - 1902, Kraal Publishers, 2002.
• Bruce & Reinhart, Webley Revolvers, Verlag Stocker-Schmid AG, 1988.
• Chamberlain & Taylerson, Revolvers of the British Services 1854 - 1954, Museum Restoration Service, 1989.
• Dowell, The Webley Story, Skyrac Press, 1962.