Stafford Collection Magazine Autumn 2022 - Flipbook - Page 55
LO C K , STO C K & BA R R E L —
53
Indeed, if increased urbanisation might have put an end
to widespread shotgun ownership — quite aside from the
fact that it is hardly something the authorities support these
days — in fact sales are, quite unlike many a partridge facing
a crack shot, in good health. This is surely one reason why,
back in 1994, the company was bought by a French luxury
goods giant that in time would become the monolithic
Richemont, the backing of which would not only see a
Purdey in person return to the company — in the guise of
Richard Purdey, the founder’s great great great grandson —
but also allow Purdey to recently open an additional stateof-the-art facility in Hammersmith, west London.
Shooting for sport — game or rough, for competition
or leisure, with England scooping many a medal in the
discipline, and the trend for corporate team-building both
helping — has boosted both interest and demand. And
yet, surely, for someone to spend perhaps £100,000 on
a Purdey shotgun — when a £400 shotgun is perfectly
serviceable — it takes something else.
The brand helps, naturally. Purdey may have made
shotguns for the great and good since it was founded by
James Purdey in 1814, just nine years after completing his
own apprenticeship with another gunmaker on Oxford
Street — and, under the leadership of his son, also James,
it was soon scooping up royal warrants ever since the
Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) and Queen Victoria
first bestowed theirs, with the likes of Charles Darwin and
India’s Maharajas also customers. By the Edwardian era —
under James Purdey the first’s great grandson, and when
hunting came into its exotic and quixotic own — a Purdey
was the de facto gun of choice for anyone with the money
and insight.
But its rarity has also enhanced its reputation — with
the less great and bad too. For all that there are many
great gunmakers around the world, not for nothing did
London’s post-war criminal underworld, in a kind of backhanded compliment, use Purdey’s name as slang for any
shotgun. And the resonance of the name no doubt also
saw it chosen — by actress Joanna Lumley, it’s said — for
the kick-ass spy she played in ‘The New Avengers’. “In fact,
I am always humbled by how cherished the Purdey name
is in the US, for example,” notes Irby, “and the US has its
own tremendous gunmakers.”
The living history too is alluring. The company has kept
a written record of every gun made in what it calls the
‘dimension books,’ with only records for 1814-1816 missing;
the ‘Black Book’ believed to been lost through bomb
damage but, ever hopeful, perhaps yet to be uncovered
behind a cupboard or at the bottom of a trunk. To own a
Purdey is literally to be made part of those records.
Purdey may have made shotguns
for the great and good since it was
founded by James Purdey in 1814.
