I picked up a Rigby single shot rifle at the CGC show in Greeley. I ordered its history direct from Rigby and received it today.  It was delivered to Lord Keane on 5th October, 1877. Now, the real searching began. Turns out that he was John Manley Arbuthnot Keane and the second son of John, the 1st Baron Keane, who was born in Belmont, Ireland in 1781. (stick with me on this, it gets interesting) That John joined the British Army as an Ensign at age 11 in 1792. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the 60th Foot and commanded a brigade in the Peninsular War. For his services there, he was awarded the Army Gold Cross with two clasps for Martinique, Vitoria, the Pyrenees, Nivelle, the Nive, and Toulouse. Promoted to Major-General, Keane commanded the British 3rd brigade at the Battle of New Orleans where he was wounded twice. He served as commander-in-chief in the West Indies and also administered the colonial government of Jamaica. Becoming Lieutenant-General, Keane served as Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay Army from 1834 to 1840 and commanded the combined British and British Indian army ("The Army of the Indus") during the opening campaign of the First Anglo-Afghan War and first Anglo Marri war. He commanded the victorious British and Indian army at the Battle of Ghazni on 23 July 1839. For his service, he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Keane, of Ghuznee and of Cappoquin in the County of Waterford on 23 December 1839. He died in England in 1844 whereupon his eldest son, Edward, born in 1815, became the 2nd Baron. Edward died without male issue in 1882 and his younger brother born in 1816, our rifle John, became the 3d Baron. At the time he ordered the Rigby he was just plain Lord John Keane holding the office of High Sheriff of County Wexford, Ireland, and Member of Parliament, House of Lords. He died in 1901, again without male issue, and the title Baron of Ghuznee and of Cappoquin, became extinct. The rifle itself lived on and will eventually appear in Single Shot Rifles.

Vall, An issue is a child.  So they may have had a daughter but not any sons in this case.
Bob

Like Kings (until the current) only the male could inherit the title. There was a special deal for Queens if no male was available. The 1st edition got the best of everything;-)
Notice that his dad did not get demoted for what happened at New Orleans. I wonder if he got his wounds when they powdered up the alligator.

That's a far better story than you get of you pay for a factory letter.

I've used Ancestry.com to look up the owners of other rifles.  Never found one that belonged to anyone notable.   

But none of those late 1800s American-made Schuetzens went to working-class guys. They couldn't afford to compete unless they were good enough to win the prize money and supplement that with side bets.

Found this Jack...
    SWORD, ROBERT was born 5 January 1899, received Social Security number 540-01-8313 (indicating Oregon) and, Death Master File says, died January 1981
Source: Death Master File (public domain). Check and Archives.com for ROBERT SWORD. [$]

See you at Tommy's!

Regards,
Joe

bpjack wrote on May 28^th, 2024 at 9:38pm:


An abject version of it...   

I just ran across another little tidbit on the 3rd Baron. In the Vintage Gun Journal, speaking about Purdey, it mentioned that the 3rd Baron Keane, who had a Purdey account, had eventually ended up with 4 of the 8 Purdeys that were exhibited at the Paris Exhibition of 1878. It said that when Keane died in 1901 at age 85, his estate was valued at 13,185 pounds 16 shillings, and 1 pence which was equivalent to just over a million pounds today (amazing the records that were kept back then). Anyway, it said that in his will dated 1899, he bequeathed "to His Royal Highness the Duke of York" (who had become the Prince of Wales on the death of his mother Queen Victoria) "all my guns, pistols, canes, walking sticks, gun cases and cabinets and hunting and riding whips" and the guns now reside in the Royal Gunroom at Sandringham Castle. There was no mention of the Rigby (or how Keane knew the Duke of York) so the Rigby must have been passed on before 1901.

I've often wondered about guns I've purchased that were made in one country and then found their way to the USA. Often they even began life as US built guns that were sent overseas, and eventually made their way back here again. I've owned a few US made rifles that were purchased by someone overseas, and later came back to the US somehow.