Another cannon marking query

[rtdavey]

Can anyone tell me what the markings on this cannon mean, or anything about the cannon. A friend from China sent me pictures and asked me to find out whatever I can. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Robert.

 

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[PBK]

Question: Is that the name ROGERS in the lower left photo?

 

[mariner]

I have lost count of the score. Is that 40-30 or Deuce ?

Mariner

 

[Smithbrown]

Please, back to basics.

This is not an official government gun. This is not even a carronade. It is what gun collectors call a gunnade and I think that a useful term. This is the sort of gun used by merchant ships or vulnerable communities. The crown shows it was cast in Britain. Date span is from c1790 upto at least c1840.

I would guess the Rogers might be for the Rogers who ran the Ironworks at Gosport, near Portsmouth, England in the 1830s. This sort of small guns was cast or sold in the ironfoundries and ships chandlers round the larger ports of Britain.

Smithbrown

 

[Smithbrown]

It may look like a carronade - that was the point- but it is not. The proportions are all wrong - long and thing, rather like a cigar, whereas true carronades are much squatter. Also this is surely a 6 pounder and again real carronades were in larger calibres, 12 being the smallest normally available.

These guns replaced the little 3,4 and 6 pounder guns made for the commercial market in the 18th century. They were made to look like carronades, with the nozzle rather than a muzzle, and distinctive breech and loop. Really, they are just pretending to be a carronade. I assume it was because they looked up-to-date.

A lot of these guns are cast with a little crown on them. The British government allowed certain classes of non-government guns to be proofed at Woolwich- basically guns bought or given to foreign governments and for the East India Company. These guns were then marked with a crowned P to show they had been through proof. However this mark was not protected by law, so what the ironfouders did was to cast the guns with this little crown and then ofthen they engraved the P underneath themselves, so to the unwary, they could be passed off as Woolwich proof.

Smithbrown

 

[Smithbrown]

Ok, this is complicated.

The earliest carronades- 1770s-80 had trunnions. If you looke here http://home.att.net/~ShipModelFAQ/ResearchNotes/smf-RN-Carronade.html Figure 3
and look at the top of the three carronade drawings, this gun is an proper carronade. You can see it does not have nozzle, but a short of flat muzzle. IThey are short, fat guns- just a mortar on its side; it does not have the loop at the breech, but a square cascable for a wrought-iron handle. They come in the smaller calibres- 12 and 18 pounders. They are all made by the Carron Company of Scotland, and the trunnions have the word CARRON, a serial number and date on one trunnion and the calibre on the other. This is the sort of carronade recovered from the wrecks off Australia, the Sirius and Pandora

During the late 1770s and early 1780s, during our unpleasance with our American friends, the carronade went through a drastic design change. They now made much large calibre carronades up to 6, they do not have trunnions but a loop under the barrel, the pyramidal breech and cascable loop. It was a little longer in relation to the calibre of the first carronades, and a nozzle was added because the sailors complained the short muzzled allowed the rigging to be set on fire. By the end of the American Wars, the carronade proper as we know it had been developed- it's the third drawing in the site above. If you turn a proper carronade upside down, you can find the flat plane with the Carron name, date and calibre engraved underneath. During the French Revolutionary wars, other British ironworks made carronades as well as Carron

Cannons are not just used by government navies. Merchant ships, and people who live in vulnerable positions liked to have some thing to defend themselves, but they don't need a big gun- they need something light and manoueverable, and cheap. Small iron foundries cast short guns- typically 6 pounders of 4 or 5 feet long. As the carronade became more popular they copied some of the features of the carronade- the nozzle, the breech, but they kept the trunnions and produced a sort of hybrid gun, which is often called a gunnade or cannonade.

Smithbrown

 

[Mackaydon]

Gents:

I don't recall reading if the gun has been ID-ed to a ship. I note that 'Smithbrown' has suggested the decade of the 1830s as when this Mr. Rogers may have cast the cannon, possibly at Gosport, near Portsmith, England.

Here is a list of small Royal Navy warships that were built in the Portsmith/Gosport yard during the 1830s:
1830 Seaflower. 1831 Charybdis. 1833 Lynx. 1834 Buzzard. 1835 Hermes. 1836 Volcano. 1837 Electra, Hazard. 1838 Termagant. 1839 Stromboli
(Source: http://www.cronab.demon.co.uk/info.htm)

Perhaps the cannon found its way to the deck of one of these vessels. Can 'rtdavey' shed some light on the name of the vessel or where the cannon was found?
All the best,
Don......

 

[rtdavey]

Thanks to all for your contribution to this enquiry, it is greatly appreciated. I will contact my source in China and try to provide some more details as to the environment in which this item was discovered. Regards....