James Erskine, a gunmaker and inventor from Newton Stewart, Scotland had a prolific career inventing and patenting many improvements to guns and cartridge loading machines. His patented cartridge filler was universally accepted and used by all of the great British gunmakers of the day!
Erskine was born on September 12, 1812, in Penninghame, Wigtownshire, Scotland, the son of Mary Watson and Thomas Erskine. He married Elizabeth Sinclair on December 4, 1854, in his hometown. They had eight children over 21 years. He died on November 20, 1891, in Newton Stewart, Wigtownshire, Scotland, having lived a long life of 79 years.
During most of those 79 years Erskine was active learning and then working in the gun trade. The IGC Historical Database indicates that Erskine began his apprenticeship at 14 years old, working as a gun finisher for Williams & Powell, or their predecessor, Edward Patrick in Liverpool.
Sometime after 1841 and before the 1851 Scotland Census, Erskine moved to Newton Stewart and began working for himself as a gun maker.
He displayed two guns at the 1851 Great Exhibition and was awarded a bronze metal.
On July 20, 1859 he delivered the following provisional specification to the British patent office for an update to the Lefaucheux-style pinfire shotgun:
À PROPOS DE MOI
Bonjour, je m'appelle Aaron Newcomer. Je suis collectionneur et chercheur sur les systèmes d'armes à feu à chargement par la culasse du début du 19e siècle, avec un intérêt particulier pour les travaux de Jean Samuel Pauly et Casimir Lefaucheux. Je collectionne les cartouches et les documents liés à ces types d'armes à feu et je mène des recherches sur ces sujets, approfondissant ma compréhension et ma connaissance de ces armes historiques et leur place dans l'évolution de la technologie des armes à feu. Ma collection et mes recherches reflètent mon engagement à préserver et à comprendre l'histoire et les innovations techniques de ces systèmes d'armes à feu anciens.
Pour en savoir plus sur moi et où mes travaux ont été publiés.
