1879 Canadian Martini Henry MkIII

[Yeandle31]

Good day all,

I'm looking at getting some information on my 1879 MkIII M-H. Specifically, I am wondering if anyone would have any insight on which battery/regiment/garrison it could have possibly been issued to.

Per Edgecombe, a '42' stock stamped typically implied issuance to the 42nd Brockville Battalion of Infantry, although that was only between "1859 and 1870" (Edgecombe 2003, 162). Further, if my understanding is correct, M-H rifles were only ever issued to artillery garrisons, competitive shooting teams, and the Royal Military College (RMC) so it seems unlikely that the Brockville battalion would have received it. That leads me to believe that '42' could simply be a rack number. As such, I have no idea what formation it would have been issued to.

I'll get better photos later on but please see the below in the interim:

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Kevin

[MasterChief]

Did you check "The Martini-Henry Rifle in Canadian Service"? Probably a dry hole...

[Sapper740]

There's lots to unpack in Mr. Edgecombe's book's chapter on Martini-Henrys. On p.74 he states that 1,700 of the 5,000 MkIII's were "in possession of Corps, on loan under bond. The supply of MkIII rifles is exhausted and it may be necessary to withdraw some of those now on loan to Corps in order to complete the arming of garrison artillery". So now the question is which units of the "Corps" had MkIII M-H in their possession so as to be able to arm the garrison artillery units. At least one unit is named in the book: The Montreal based 6th Fusiliers of Canada. Further complicating the identification of the various units possessing the M-H's on loan was that they were not to be marked or defaced in any manner although it is possible that some received unit markings.