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INDEX

introduction

childhood - railways -
inventions

India - the Mutiny - illness - investigation

bullets - barrels - telescopic
sights - explosive bullets

hollow front bullets -
Volunteers & the NRA -
Sir Henry Halford

rifling - the small-bore rifle

Mitrailleuse - breech-loaders

military rifles - bullet design

the latter years

Memoir

of

William Ellis Metford

From a photograph
taken in 1878

It was characteristic of Mr. Metford that he intended to have. spent a substantial part of the sum awarded him by the War Office for his services in connection with the .303 rifle, in fresh experiments, to clear up questions connected with recoil, the resistance of the air, and other matters; but, in the summer of 1892 a sharp attack of his old illness from which he did not return to his normal level of comparatively good health, put an end to such projects; and, after a few years of failing strength quietly spent, he passed away peacefully at his house at Redland, Bristol, on October 14th, 1899.

He made, in his latter years, few now friends, for he was not always equal to the exertion of social intercourse, and not many save his old friends really knew him for what he was. His kindness to the young learner, those who experienced it will never forget, and he had a sweetness and broad humanity about him such as many equally vigorous characters lack. Though devoted chiefly to scientific pursuits, ho read widely, and was keenly interested in all the matters that occupy the attention of thinking men--history, politics, science, and especially religion, for be was above all a God-fearing man. He bore the constant burden of illhealth with singular patience, and his calmness was conspicuous when, some fifteen years ago, he lost the records of half his life's gunnery work in a handbag stolen from a cab in London, and never recovered. It should be mentioned that in 1876, when closing the breech of a rifle, the cap exploded prematurely and blew off the upper part of his right thumb. He bore the pain of the healing of this with great fortitude. Cant and hypocrisy he hated, and the work of his hands was thoroughly and scrupulously finished; nor was the accuracy of his mind less well marked. His work, whether in India or at home, was worthy of wider appreciation than it received, and he left in the world of those interested in rifle-work a gap which there is none to fill.