content_output-015_4 (Q5459)

As a sporting gunmaker, W. Greener had now (1845-58) arrived at a very high position, proved by the fact that he was appointed to make guns for the Prince Consort, and at the 1851 Exhibition he received a highest award “for guns and barrels perfectly forged and finished,” and later, too, at the New York and Paris Exhibitions of 1853 and 1855 silver medals were awarded him. In the palmy days of the Southern States of America, before the War, very highly finished weapons were sent there, as much as £75 being paid for a gun of W. Greener’s make. It was with the money obtained by the supply of South Africa with two-groove rifles that Mr. Greener erected his factory at “Rifle Hill,” Aston, in 1859, and the more prosperous time of the firm may be dated therefrom. Just before this W. Greener had published his last work, “Gunnery in 1858,” which was written in the warlike spirit, as he challenged the statements of other authors very freely. Though he lived until 1869, he never took kindly to the breech-loaders, and died in the faith in which he had lived. His son differed from him in this respect, and struck out a line of his own in breech-loaders, producing in 1864 his first patent, an under-lever pin-fire half-cocker with a top bolt entering the barrels underneath the top rib.