I served at the American Embassy in India for three years in the late 1980’s. My landlord was Indian Army Major General D.K. (Monty) Palit, former chief of operations of the India Army (during the Indo-China War), WWII Indian Army veteran, and noted military author. He was from a highly educated upper-class Indian family (Bengali father - senior doctor in the Indian Army, Mahratta mother) which had adopted British customs when it came to gun-sport. He had 5 doubles on his wall passed down by his father and grandfather, I believe they were: a 12ga Holland & Holland, a 12ga E.M. Reilly, a 16ga possibly Army-Navy, one I’m not sure of and a 20ga. William Evans.
I had a CJ-7 Jeep in New Delhi at that time; he had the hunting permits; and we went out often in the Falls of those three years, hunting ducks, dove and quail in the brilliant yellow mustard fields of Uttar Pradesh on the Gangetic plain. He used his H&H; I used my Remington 870 - a pump - something he informed me one didn’t do in polite society (I countered that in Alabama we might have a dog…here he had 5 shikaris and a couple of servers cleaning the birds and making duck-curry sandwiches…different places, different solutions). But the idea that I needed a SxS became fixed…even more so when he gifted my wife the 20ga William Evans as we left country. Since then I’ve held dozens of English SxS’s. Nothing felt right.
Gen. Palit's books and obituary:
https://www.amazon.com/D.-K.-Palit/e/B001IC8QPK
http://www.india-seminar.com/2008/586/5 ... moriam.htm
Then at a gun show in November 2015 in Northern Virginia a Reilly hammer gun just stuck to my hand. It was 6 lbs 1oz, chambered for 2 1/2; 30” Damascus barrels; twin triggers; no ejectors; with that beautifully slim upper stock and receiver back that comes with hammer guns - It was similar to the General’s E.M. Reilly as I remembered it; Perhaps I had imprinted on that gun? But whatever It felt like a rapier, while everything else now seemed like battle-axes. The seller had about 15 guns from very high-quality makers. He said I was the only person ever to show interest in the Reilly. He insisted on my shooting it..I did and couldn’t part with it..It had some imperfections; it wasn’t pristine, had been worked on; I paid too much but it was my gun.
With this introduction the gun led me to do three years of research on Reilly. Histories of the company at the time were short, confounding, contradictory and confusing. I have now put together a "New Short History of Reilly of London" and have come up with a Serial Number chart which will permit Reilly owners to date their guns to within at least a year, often within six months. It can be read here along with the original research:
http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubb ... t=showflat
L-R: Author; Patel (who made the duck curry); General Palit, in New Delhi, November 1988:
28 years later....a Reilly SxS in memory of General Palit:'
Now here is a request. Reilly exported a lot of guns to the sub-continent. I have found labels with Sanskrit writing on them and have found references to various maharajas who bought them. If anyone has a Reilly or knows of Reilly guns in India, I'd much appreciate serial numbers, type, bore, action, and the name and address on the ribs and photos if possible.
To illustrate, here is a quote from "Karma Express," a description of a trip on the The Deccan Odyssey, one of India's most regal luxury trains:
"Afterward, we were ferried out to the palace of the maharaja of Kolhapur, a late-Victorian pile in the syncretic Indo-Saracenic style invented by the British. It was designed by the English architect Charles Mant, although Lewis Carroll might have had a hand in it.
"The maharajas were great collectors of empire's bric-a-brac. The tomblike salons exuded a Dickensian squalor and were crammed with sambar heads and taxidermic elephants in full regalia, horse racing trophies, and stuffed fantail snipes. There were lamps with deer hooves for stands, electrically illuminated peacocks, glasses with boar-tusk handles, and beautiful English guns from the London firm of E. M. Reilly.
http://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2007- ... ma-express
I wrote a request for information on the Maharaja of Kolhapur's site - never heard back. I will post some guns and labels separately which hopefully someone can answer.
By the way during my time in India I had the pleasure of meeting a large number of retired Indian generals and to listen to all sorts of history from them. It was fascinating since I'd done the same thing with their compatriots in Pakistan 10 years previous.
Keep them coming!
) What an interesting start!
