I do have one in 12G 2.5" damascus nitro proofed. I bought it 25 years ago off a Solicitor that had used it for duck on the Ganges river. I hit well on pigeon with it.
I was provided with the history by a UK chap on the Double Gun site.
Here is the original sales docket.
Details about Mr Henry C. Stone
Original purchaser of the Edwinson & Green 12 bore shotgun, serial no. 5014
His address when he ordered the shotgun is given as ‘Sunnyside’, Weston Park, BATH, England. The date was April 16th 1892. From the census the preceding year we can see that he was living there with his wife, two servants and a niece. He is listed as a solicitor (lawyer), aged 35. The Weston Park area is just to the west of the centre of Bath and these houses would have been newly built. Aerial photographs show a substantial detached property.
Ten years earlier he is listed as living on the Royal Crescent (half a mile from Weston Park) with his widowed father John Stone, also a solicitor, a sister and three servants.
Further research shows that he was baptised on 25th October 1855 in Bath. At the age of 18 he became an articled clerk (trainee solicitor) with the company of Francis, Thornley and King of Bath for a period of five years. By 1884 he is working in Queens Square Bath with the legal practice Stone, King, King, Stone & Watts, presumably his father’s company.
Henry married Elizabeth Hannah Newbould on 25th June 1884 in the parish of Charlton Kings, Gloucestershire, which is two miles from the centre of Cheltenham but 35 miles from Bath. Perhaps this is a clue why he chose to patronise a Cheltenham gun maker rather than ones in Bath.
She was aged just 20. His father is shown as being the Town Clerk of Bath, whilst her father is shown as a Gentleman.
Another entry shows that Elizabeth Hannah Stone was buried on June 2nd 1885 in the same coffin as their infant daughter Lily Newbould Stone, aged five days.
On 8th May 1889 he married Gwladys Emma Millicent Vachell, born in Glamorgan, Wales in 1868. This marriage was celebrated in London at St George’s, Hanover Square, and his address then was given as 14 Stratton Street, London, just off Piccadilly and barely half a mile south.
Henry Stone died on 13th March 1926 aged 71 at 9 Brock Street, Bath. His will was valued at £35,544, or close to £1, 800,000 in today’s money. Probate was awarded to Reginald Cyril Stone, retired Major in the British Army.
