| The
History of Atkin Grant & Lang Limited |
Henry Atkin
The first recorded Henry Atkin was a workman of James Purdey when he started up in business in 1814, indeed it is said that he was the first man Purdey employed. He stayed with him for 50 years, during which time his own son, also Henry Atkin, was apprenticed to him at Purdeys and stayed there for about 10 years. It was this son who was to found the gunmaking firm of that name in 1877, On leaving Purdeys in 1866, Henry went to William Moore & Co., then at its 43 Old Bond St address, and stayed with the firm for ten years until setting up on his own for the first time at 18 Oxendon St in 1877. An early Atkin advertisement indicates that the business was established in 1875, but there is no other evidence to support this earlier date.
There is a further mystery regarding the early trading of Henry Atkin, as it is recorded that from 1862 to 1870 a gunmaker of that name was trading from 43 Upper Manor St, Chelsea. One or two historians indicate that this is Henry Atkin the younger, possible trading from his private address. However, during the first four of those years he would still have been at Purdeys, and during the last four at Moores, and one has to ask whether either of those firms who have permitted one of their employees to operate in this way at that period.
At that time the apprenticeship period was seven years and in 1862 young Henry would have only been in his sixth year of apprenticeship. Could it have been his father working on his own after his years at Purdeys? It is certainly interesting to note young Henry only claimed to have been established in 1875. Perhaps we will never know the answer. However we do know that the business prospered and established a good reputation for high quality game and pigeon guns which were used by those who frequented the Hurlington Club and the Gun Club. This fame allowed it to move into more expensive and prestigious premises, first at 2 Jermyn St in 1890, where it became a limited company in 1905. Later that year, due to demolition of No. 2 to make way for an entrance to Piccadilly Circus underground station, it moved to 41 Jermyn St, where it was to remain until the last year of the First World War. The next move took it to 88 Jermyn St (Hussey's previous premises) where it remained until it moved into it
last independent premises at 27 St James's St in 1952.
Henry Atkin the firm's founder died in March 1907, 30 years after he opened his Oxendon St premises. The same year, the firm produced the first of its spring opening guns based largely on the Purdey action, in turn the design of Frederick Beesley. In 1909 there was a further improvement to the ejector work and it was this gun which was to be the model for which this maker will probably be best remembered. After Atkins' death CF Hinton ran the business followed by a succession of members of the Hodges family of London Gun Actioners. First EC Hodges, then his son Lionel F Hodges carried on the business until he died in 1941. LF Hodges started in the trade in 1881 and joined Atkins in 1910. His son, Arthur, took over until the merger. Between them they had over 160 years with Atkins. The economics of gunmaking and the Second World War forced many independent gunmakers out of business. Charles Hellis and Son (est. 1884), probably best known for its 'Accuracy Guaranteed' cartridges, was acquired by Atkins in March 1956. On 1 April 1960 the company was amalgamated with Grant & Lang to become Atkin, Grant and Lang Ltd (7 Bury St, St James's). With the amalgamation Mr WRH Robson and Arthur Hodges were initially joint managing directors with Roy Robson's niece, Miss ME (Betty) Brown, as a director and company secretary. In 1971 Churchills joined to become Churchills Atkin Grant & Lang Ltd which in 1976 moved to 61 Pall Mall (the premises of Hardy Bros, the internationally known fishing tackle makers) from which address it ceased trading in 1980. However the Harris & Sheldon Group of Companies, which then owned those and various other gunmaking names, initially licensed their use to Don Masters, who was running EJ Churchill Ltd, and then to W & C Scott until the Group sold the Atkin Grant and Lang names in 1984. It is leasing to know that the firm is still trading under its new name Atkin Grant & Lang and producing fine quality guns to order bearing those names.
Stephen Grant
Stephen Grant was apprenticed to Kavanagh of Dublin before coming to London, where he is believed to have been with Charles Lancaster prior to working for Thomas Boss. On Boss's death in August 1857, his widow made him a managing partner. He ran the firm for 10 years before deciding to set up on his own at 67a St James's St, London in 1867. In 1884 Grant set up the Grant & Woodward Shooting and Fishing Agency at the same address. This later became Paton Grant & Woodward and survived until 1959 when it was sold to the London estate Agents Strutt & Parker, Lofts & Warner. Grants two sons, Stephen and Herbert, joined the business and in 1889 the name was changed to Stephen Grant & Sons.
Grant himself was a cautious man, disinclined to espouse new designs until he was quite satisfied that they were fully effective, and in the last quarter of the nineteenth century the quality and reliability he built into his guns was recognised by the award of a number of warrants from the Queen, The Prince of Wales and several other Royal Houses in Europe and further afield.
After the disruption caused by the First World War, the business moved to 7 Bury St, St James's. By this time, ownership of the business had passed to William Robson whose son, WRH (Roy) Robson, joined his father in the business in 1923 and subsequently became a director in 1925.
It was in this period that the Robsons, who had no previous background in gunmaking, set about the acquisition of a number of famous London gunmakers that were facing hard times.
The first move was the acquisition in 1925 of Joseph Lang & Son Ltd, as a result of which the whole business was then renamed Stephen Grant & Joseph Lang Ltd and remained at the Bury St premises. In 1930 it acquired Harrison & Hussey Ltd, in 1932 Charles Lancaster & Co Ltd, in 1935 Watson Bros, in 1939 Frederick Beesley and then, after the Second World War, Roy's father having died in 1946, the final acquisition was Henry Atkin in 1960. As a result the name of the business was changed to Atkin Grant & Lang Ltd, still at 7 Bury St. A few years before that, in 1950, the 200-year-old Redditch tackle firm of Messrs Milwards Fishing Tackle Ltd set up its London base with Grant & Lang and Col. HGV Milward became a director of Grant & Lang and remained until his retirement and the take-over by Cummings.
Roy Robson, for all his lack of gunmaking background was highly thought of in the trade in which he was active behind the scenes and with the Gunmakers Association, of which his father had been chairman in 1933 and 1934, and he had been in 1949. In 1957-64 he was also the President of the Association, the first from a non-gunmaking family, the three previous incumbents being Messrs Holland, Greener and Purdey. In addition to all this, he was Master of the Gunmakers Company in 1950 and 1959 and he took a great interest in the Long Sufferers Association and the Gun and Allied Trades Benevolent Society, which looks after old gunmakers an their families who have fallen on hard times. His cousin, Betty Brown, joined the company in December 1938 and followed in his footsteps to become the first and so far the only lady Chairman of the Gun Trade Association in 1962.
Around 1964, Churchill (Gunmakers) Ltd became associated with Atkin Grant & Lang Ltd. In 1967 Churchills moved into the 7 Bury St premises, which the business had occupied for 47 years. Sam Cummings, as American businessman who owned Churchills, had acquired the business. Roy Robson had retired in 1964 and Betty Brown resigned in 1968 after the 1967 take-over. Along with the surviving records and goodwill of the various gunmaking companies in the Atkin Grant and Lang Group, Cummings acquired a unique collection of the various gunmakers' patent guns which had been kept together by the Robsons since the first amalgamation in 1925. Unfortunately, this collection was not passed on with the various companies on their subsequent resale, but was eventually sold by Sotheby's in 1993.
In 1971 the name was again changed to Churchill, Atkin Grant & Lang Ltd and in 1976 the business was moved to 61 Pall Mall, St James's, the long-time premises of Hardy Bros, the famous fishing tackle manufacturers, who had themselves started out as gunmakers. By this time, ownership of the gunmaking company had passed through the hands of Thomas Poole and Gladstone China Clay Ltd and subsequently into the hands of Harris * Sheldon Group who also owned Hardys. For a variety of reasons, including the lack of business, it was decided to close the gunmaking side of the business down and Churchill Atkin Grant & Lang ceased trading in 1980. However, such famous gunmaking names were not likely to remain dormant long and the following year new proprietors restarted the three names of Atkin Grant & Lang & Co Ltd at 6 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, WC2, with their factory at 53 Wildhill, Essendon, Herts, from which it continued to produce a small number of guns and rifles until 1966 when the company was advertised for sale.
Joseph Lang
Until 1812 Joseph Lang worked for Alexander Wilson of 1 Vigo Lane, who subsequently moved to 14 Titchbourne St, Piccadilly. In 1821 he set up on his own and in 1825 was recorded as Joseph Lang Gun and Pistol Repository (from Wilson's Warehouse, Vigo La.) at 7 Haymarket and was to stay there for more than a quarter of a century. In 1826 he had something of a commercial coup, as he was able to advertise in the Morning Chronicle of 8 June the entire stock of guns of the bankrupt Joseph Manton after he had to leave his Oxford St premises. He opened a 21 yard shooting gallery adjoining the premises in early January 1827, one of the earliest recorded shooting schools.
In 1830-34 Joseph took delivery of 84 guns, rifles and pistols from James Purdey on sale or return, all of which were quickly sold. Joseph obviously got on well with Purdey; indeed he got on even better with one of his four daughters, whom he subsequently married, making the younger James Purdey his brother-in-law. Just before leaving his Haymarket premises he exhibited at the Great Exhibition and was very impressed with a French Lefaucheaux gun, so much so that in 1856 he introduced his own version using the Houillier pin-fire cartridge system. His marketing of this design and subsequent improvements to it have resulted in Lang's name being forever linked to the introduction of breech loading sporting firearms into Great Britain.
In 1853 he moved to 22 Cockspur St, Charing Cross, the last premises he personally was to occupy. I his life he not only brought us the breech loader, but he became a driving force in popularising lemon and white pointers and also the idea of field trials for dogs. After his death, his son, also Joseph, ran the business, although it appears that the name was not changed to Joseph Lang & Son until 1875. Young Joseph, perhaps as a result of the kinship through marriage, had been apprenticed to the younger James Purdey in 1845 and such expert training helped to ensure the continuing success of the firm.
After the move to 10 Pall Mall in 1890, Lang brought out the Vena Contracta gun, the brainchild of H Phillips (shooting editor of The Field magazine), which fired a 12 bore cartridge in a barrel which was contracted to a 20 bore gauge during the first third of its length. However it was not a great success, as the weight advantage gained was offset by increased recoil and indifferent performance and many of these guns were subsequently re-barrelled. Eight years later, the business of James Lang & Co. was to be taken over. This was the result of young Joseph's brother, having set up on his own in 1887 and that business now being returned to the fold. The business was briefly renamed Joseph Lang & Co Ltd and it moved to 102 New Bond St, which had been James Lang & Co.'s premises. With that move came the change of name on 28 June 1898 to Lang & Hussey Ltd which was retrained until 27 June 1901 when it reverted to Joseph Lang & Son Ltd.
On 14 January 1902 one the directors, a Capt. Bartle Grant, wrote from Malta to resign. He was in financial difficulties and the company had considerable problems recovering an outstanding account for a gun which he had pawned.
In February 1904 the company applied for a provisional patent for an armour piercing projectile in the joint names of Mr LM Ames and Joseph Lang & Son Ltd. In 1904 it sent 12 guns to the St Louis Exhibition in the USA. It also did work for the Automatic Rifle Syndicate Ltd, trying to improve the product without success and had difficulty in recovering the money since the syndicate was in financial trouble. In 1906, as a result of the need for more production space, it took over the three-storey building immediately behind the Bond St. shop. On 29 October 1913, Dryden & white's patent rights in their o/u gun were assigned to the company and formed the basis of the Lang 'Under and Over' gun.
In February 1914, the company set up a five-year agreement with Abercrombie & Fitch of New York for it to be sole USA agent and this was hoped to improve Lang's indifferent trading performance. Interestingly, the rent of 102 New Bond St at that stage was renewed for a further six years, three years at £475 per annum and the following three at £500 per annum payable quarterly! The company remained under the name Joseph Lang & son Ltd at the Bond St address until 1925 amalgamation with the business of Stephen Grant & Sons. This formed the basis of the major London gunmaking combine of Stephen Grant & Joseph Lang Ltd at 7 Bury St, St James's under the guidance of succeeding generations of the Robson family. Surviving records show that in 1933 their joint customer list contained eight dukes, 254 lords, 206 ladies, 73 service personnel, 6,322 members of the British public and 151 overseas customers!
The history of Henry Atkin, Stephen Grant and Joseph Lang is shown by kind permission of Nigel Brown, taken from his book 'London Gunmakers'.
A word from the present owner, Ken Duglan
I served my apprenticeship with Atkin Grant & Lang over thirty years ago. In my wildest dreams I could never have imagined that one day I would be fortunate enough not only to be part of, but to run such an exceptional company. We make guns today the way they have always been made, by using fine craftsmen. I like to think that Henry, Stephen and Joseph would be content in the knowledge that their names still embellish very fine guns.
Back
to top |
|
