Purdey\'s have confirmed that these guns were completed in July 1893 for a Sir Charles Ross and later bought by a Mr. Geoffrey Merton, son of Sir Thomas Merton who was given the guns for his 18th birthday.

Sir Charles Henry Augustus Frederick Lockhart Ross, 9th Baronet, was an eccentric Scottish inventor and entrepreneur. As a boy he was adorned with lavish extravagancies by his mother, not least including "The most superbly appointed and biggest steam yacht launched on the Thames for river use", an ocean going steam yacht, a large sailing yacht and a carriage and four. When Sir Ross came of age, he filed a lawsuit against his mother for overspending the revenues of his estates.

Whilst Sir Ross was a keen shot, big game hunter and rowed for Cambridge in The Boat Race, he is best known for the invention of the straight-pull Ross rifle which was adopted by his own battery during the Boer war and later adopted and mass manufactured for the Canadian Military for use in the First World War This success was said to have made Sir Ross Britain\'s largest landowner, possessing an estimated 366,000 acres. In an effort to avoid British taxation, Sir Ross declared his estate of Balnagown as a territory of the United States of America. This eventually lead to Sir Ross being branded an outlaw by the British government.

Sir Thomas Ralph Merton, who later purchased the guns for his son Geoffrey, was an English Physicist, inventor and collector. He is best known for his work on spectroscopy and diffraction gratings, yet in later life turned his interests towards his art collection. Most notably, Sir Merton acquired Botticelli\'s Portrait of a Young Man holding a Roundel for  £17,000. This later became one of the most valuable pieces of art ever sold at , when it realized $92.2 million in January 2021. His son Geoffrey later found fame after acquiring the substantial collection of paintings by Francesco Guardi that were found in Dublin in 1956, a find that was described as "...superb, among the most remarkable of eighteenth-centaury Venetian paintings... a revelation on Guardi". *** Note: To see this gun with high resolution photos and a zoom-in feature, go to the vintagedoubles main site and search for the gun ID: 4634 or browse the main site to see our full gun collection.

SOLD

Manufacturer: James Purdey & Sons Matched Pair in wonderful condition and fabulous history! Built for Sir Charles Ross of the Ross pull back Rifle fame
Model: None
Serial Number: 14326
Ejectors: Yes
Barrels: 30
Barrel Type: Steel
Action: Sidelock ejector
Gauge Info: 12 gauge
Stock Comb: 1 9/16
Stock Heel: 2 1/8
Stock Cast: 1/4
LOP: 14 1/2" to blac
Weight: 6 lbs. 13 oz.
Choke Left: .019 tight Mod
Choke Right: .002 Near Cylinder
Proof:Nitro: 2 1/2
Minimum Wall Thickness Left: .025
Minimum Wall Thickness Right: .026