Purdey’s relationship with the Royal Family stretches back almost 200 years, with Queen Victoria making her first purchase shortly after her Coronation in 1838. This was formalised 40 years later, when Purdey was appointed her Gun & Rifle Maker. It is a position that the company has been proud to occupy for nearly 150 years, having retained it through five successive monarchs.
The relationship between the Royal Family and the Purdeys was remarkably close. The company archive contains personal correspondence with both monarchs and other members of the family, including all five of King George V’s sons. Both Prince Edward and Prince Albert served in the First World War, as did Jim and Tom Purdey. A month after the Armistice, King George (depicted in the illustration below) and his two sons visited Lille to inspect the troops before attending a gala at the opera house. Tom was delegated to escort the two Princes for the day and drove them back to the army commander’s house after the performance.
All four of King George’s sons were fine game shots, but by the late 1920s Prince Albert, now Duke of York, was having issues with the 16-bore Purdeys he had received when he was a teenager. They were now too light for him, and he was getting headaches as well as a bruised face and shoulder. In October 1929, Tom Purdey offered the Duke the loan of his own pair of lightweight 12-bore guns (pictured below), Nos. 23,651/2, which had been completed the previous year. Unusually for guns of the period, they were completed with ‘Prince of Wales’ semi-pistolgrip stocks, which suited the Royal Family’s preference.
Tom’s offer was gratefully accepted, and Prince Albert promised that he would "take great care of them", and "give them a good trial". By early December the Duke appears to have been fully convinced of their superiority to his existing guns, telling Tom: "Now that I have got used to them my shooting I know has improved." The following February, Jim Purdey visited the Duke’s Piccadilly home and received an order for a new pair of 12-bore guns. These were delivered in June that same year, so that the Duke could practice with them before the season. A pair of guns were also loaned to the Duke’s younger brother, Prince George, in 1930 and 1931, before he too ordered his own guns.
Tom continued to shoot with his guns until 1934 (pictured above on a trip with Prince Frederick of Prussia that same year), when they were temporarily lengthened for another client. Colonel John Aird had been in the year below Tom at Eton, and won a Military Cross with the Grenadier Guards in the last summer of the war. He went on to serve as an Aide-de-Camp to the Governor of Bombay and the High Commissioner of Egypt, before becoming Equerry to the Prince of Wales in 1929.
Aird was so enamoured with Tom’s pair of guns that he purchased them in 1935, having them restocked to his measurements in time for that season. However, the following year the Royal Household underwent significant changes, with the death of King George V, abdication of King Edward VIII, and the coronation of the Duke of York as King George VI. Tom was formally appointed the King’s gunmaker in 1938 and held the Royal Warrant until he retired in 1955. Aird served as Extra Equerry to King George, as well as his daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, until his death in 1973.
Tom Purdey’s guns were recently returned to us and are soon to be given pride of place at our Shooting Grounds (pictured above, displayed at Audley House). They represent a uniquely tangible piece of history – a pair that have been shot by both royalty and two men who served them, in various capacities, for over half a century. They are classic examples of the very finest workmanship that Purdey is still famous for today and demonstrate the timelessness of traditional English gunmaking that is so highly-prized around the world.