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11. The Guns
The principal problem with the new large calibre cannon, and for most of the new rifled pieces, was the carriage on which they were served. Although the barrels of his great guns were heavy for their time their recoil was ferocious and when mounted on conventional, wheeled or truck carriages or simple friction carriages they were difficult to manage. In fact these new exceptionally large guns were never mounted on wheeled trucks other than for tests. Blakely had included a revolutionary hydraulic gun carriage in his first patent of 1855 to control the immense recoil of great guns. He withdrew his patent claim for this in 1859 as part of his fight with W G Armstrong, a hydraulic engineer. 
3¾ inch or 18 pounder Blakely rifle that fired on Sumter in 1861
Described in detail under “First Manufacture”, pictured on its original mount at Charleston, South Carolina In comparison, the small rifled field and mountain pieces that Blakely had produced early in the 1860s were shorter and lighter than their smooth-bored predecessors. But, even though using less propellant, they too presented problems to their gunners in their violent recoil which could be unmanageable and could damage the wooden carriages on which they were mounted, built to suit the old models. Blakely was primarily concerned with the construction of ordnance. The detail of rifling and projectiles for such ordnance he was initially ready to leave to others. As regards rifling he originally utilised the system of Commander Robert Scott, RN, the so-called “centrical” or ratchet rifling, as well as, in larger pieces, the “square rifling” of his other close associate, Bashley Britten. By 1863 Blakely adopted and subsequently patented his own standard of “ratchet rifling”. This rifling is identical to that adopted by Commander John Brooke, CSN, for his naval and coastal cannon.
Most surviving ordnance made in Britain for Blakely has the provenance “Blakely’s Patent” cast or struck into the breech; the trunnions of such pieces also have a serial number cast into their ends (as do virtually all British cannon). Similarly, on most of Blakely’s guns the year of manufacture features on the right trunnion, the serial on the left. The serials are consecutive to Blakely rather than to the manufacturer; i.e. from 1 to c. 480. On January 24, 1859 Captain Blakely observed that to that date he had made “six or seven” guns to his 1855 patent, all of them experimental.
Blakely 9 pounder gun of 1854 Blakely’s 9 pounder Gun 1854 In 1854 the Butterley Company constructed for Captain Blakely his first 9 pounder iron smooth-bored cannon featuring tension bands. It had a 4 inch calibre cast-iron tube turned down from the breech to the trunnions to 10½ inches diameter and then “hooped” at the breech with three tapering wrought-iron rings. Blakely’s 9 pounder was sent to the Government’s firing range at Shoeburyness in the Thames estuary for comparison with the British Army’s standard 9 pounder cast-iron field gun and another iron gun designed by a Mr Duncan. The tests were the severest imaginable: each piece initially fired 120 rounds with the Army’s common charge. This was followed by overloading each with six pounds of powder and double-shot. With this load Duncan’s gun burst after three rounds and the standard gun burst after 110 rounds. The Army gunners had to abandon this test with Blakely’s new gun after it had fired 318 overloaded rounds. They then filled the Blakely barrel to the muzzle with powder and shot and fired it repeatedly with this absurd charge; Blakely’s gun lasted for 158 of these “rounds” before it finally burst. 
6.4 inch Blakely banded, rifled gun, No 1 publically demonstrated at Hightown Sands, Liverpool, on May 2, 1860 Blakely Gun “No 1”, 1860 The first gun that Captain Blakely demonstrated publically was a large 6.4 inch calibre piece made by Fawcett, Preston & Company in Liverpool. It had a long cast-iron tube, 160 inches long overall, 140 inches in the bore, which was rifled with twenty of Scott’s “ratchets”. The breech was turned to a 19 inch cylinder and a 30 inch long, 26 inch overall diameter, steel sleeve sweated on for strengthening. It weighed 6,800 pounds and cost, it was said, £250 to manufacture. The design was settled with the makers on November 10, 1859.
This 6.4 inch (i.e. bored as a 32 pounder, or 16 centimetres, “aimed” at the European market!) gun was rigorously tested in public, and in the presence of ordnance officers from France, Spain, Russia, Austria and Italy, between May and August 1860 at Hightown Sands, north of Liverpool. It fired Bashley Britten’s lead-skirted explosive shells of up to 68 pounds weight.
This 6.4 inch banded, rifled gun and the widely reported trials at Hightown launched Captain Blakely on to the world stage. Guns for Spain 1860 On January 2, 1860 the Spanish Artillery Committee in Madrid published a long report of its test with iron and brass rifled ordnance during the previous year.
“Cast iron by itself, as is clearly proved to us by the bursting of the guns we have tried, is not strong enough to resolve the question of rifled cannon of large calibre, unless the charge of gunpowder be much reduced, and even then the gunners would not feel confidence in their guns.” In addition it condemned wrought-iron as a material for ordnance as it was “without the hardness and other qualities necessary to the bore of a gun.”
The Spanish committee tried a 32 pounder Blakely steel-hooped gun at Gijon on March 9, 1859:
“The results of the proof are the following:-
No. of rounds with Powder 3 kgs 3½ kgs 4 kgs Total Hooped gun 600 200 400 1,200 Gun without hoops — 153 — 153 “The hooped gun is not at all injured. The firing was in the same place, and equal in all circumstances. Seeing this, and taking into consideration the premature bursting of the un-hooped guns at Gijon, the committee cannot do less than acknowledge the great increase of strength which the hoops supply, and declare themselves convinced that from guns cast of iron, in a single piece, the advantages of the system of rifling cannot be obtained.”
Mechanics’ Magazine reporting the Spanish trials, said that ‘On the 13th of November, 1859, a Blakely gun, of 16 centimetres bore (6¾ inches), is reported to have been fired 900 rounds without suffering even the slightest alteration. On the 4th of September, 1860, another of the same bore, and weighing only 2,835 kilograms (about 57 cwt), is reported as bearing no less than 1,366 rounds, with 28 2/10 ths kilogram (about 60 pound) shells, and charges of 3 and 3½ kilograms of powder. During the first days of proof 100 rounds were fired, with intervals of only from 1 to l ¼ minutes. On the following days 50 rounds were fired with the same rapidity every morning, and 50 more every evening.” The gun could not be touched with the hand, “on account of the heat.” No wonder the committee thinks that this proof “renders apparent the excellence of the gun, and consequently that of the hooping system.”’
The magazine continued, ‘The final decision of the committee, which has been acted on by the Government to the extent of ordering 600 sixty-pounder cannon, we cannot give better than in its own words:- “The path we must follow is clearly indicated: cast-iron cylinders hooped, a most simple manufacture, which, once established, only requires great care in securing the proper diameter to the bore of the hoops. The difference between the diameters of the hoops and of the cast-iron part must be determined by experiment, aided by calculation.”’
The Spanish commission also recommended the adoption of a 4.8 inch 24 pounder iron siege gun, a 3.4 inch 9 pounder brass field gun and a 3.4 inch 9 pounder brass mountain gun, all with French pattern three-groove rifling for studded projectiles, being new pieces and conversions from old. These were not made to Blakely’s patent principles.
On September 13, 1861 Captain Blakely wrote, “the Spanish Government last year adopted the plan of building guns which I have advocated for some years without any communication with me. This, in my opinion, proves the correctness of my views more than if the plan had been recommended by me and merely found to answer. The Spanish officers discovered the proper tension for the outer layers of a gun by observation first and calculation afterwards.” This was the reverse of Blakely’s approach.
It is not clear whether or not production of the 16 centimetre “Blakely” hooped gun was implemented. Guns for Garibaldi 1860 The London newspapers and Mechanics’ Magazine all reported that Blakely and Fawcett, Preston & Company had provided 70 pounder rifled cannon for Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian revolutionary, in August 1860. It is known that a very small number of 6 or 6.4 inch Blakely guns were shipped in that month from Liverpool to Genoa, paid for by Garibaldi’s English supporters. Bolognesi Guns for Peru 1861 Colonel Francisco Bolognesi Cervantes, director of artillery of the Peruvian Army in 1860, visited England to procure modern ordnance for his command and for the Peruvian Navy. He reviewed existing manufacturers including Armstrong, Whitworth and Blakely; attending the High Town gun trials at Liverpool. He settled on Blakely for the bulk of his purchase: fourteen 12 pounders for sea service, twelve 12 pounder field guns, fourteen 9 pounder mountain guns and fourteen 4 pounder mountain guns, fifty-four guns in all. They were constructed with cast-iron tubes, cast-iron trunnion rings and steel breech jackets during 1861. The sea service pieces were mounted on trucks, the field guns on the usual wooden block trails, but the mountain guns were on advanced iron carriages, which could also be carried on three mules. The four-pounders did not have cascabel knobs.
Ammunition for these pieces was all to Bashley Britten’s patent: 2,800 rounds of shot and shell for the sea service guns and 4,800 rounds of shot, shrapnel and common shell for the military pieces. A longer description may be found here in First Manufacture and in Cannon for Peru. Colonel Bolognesi also acquired 25,000 Minie-pattern rifle muskets in Prussia, 4,000 Sharps breech-loading carbines and 1,000 Jacob’s double-barrelled carbines in Europe for the Peruvian infantry and cavalry. 
3½ inch, 12 pounder Blakely “standard” gun Made in several sizes, all with the large trunnion ring, between 1861 and 1866 Eight were made in 1861 for Major-General John C Frémont for use by the United States Army in the Western Department Frémont’s “Liverpool Guns” 1861 Whilst in London on his own business during the “Sumter Spring” of 1861 John Charles Frémont, the legendary pathfinder of the American west and soon-to-be Major-General in the US Army, engaged in a private purchasing mission in support of the Union. Among his acquisitions of rifle-muskets and ordnance were a number of 12 pounder rifles of Fawcett, Preston & Company, which he called his “Liverpool guns”. Frémont formally agreed to Fawcett’s terms on June 4, 1861.
Eight 12 pounder rifled cannon, of 3½ inch Blakely-calibre, with carriages complete, were ordered for a total of £1,700; to accompany them shells were bought “from another source” (Bashley Britten) for £1,403. Payment was to be made on Frémont’s behalf through the American house of George Peabody & Company, 22 Old Broad Street, City, merchants and money-brokers.
Fawcett’s price of £212 per gun and carriage contrasts with their price of £109 for the same outfit to Peru and £110 for a somewhat different Confederate model of 3.5 inch gun, without carriage.
Frémont’s guns were delivered at New York off the Inman liner ‘City of Baltimore’ early in August 1861 and by railroad to the US Arsenal at St Louis, Missouri, late in the same month. All eight were provided to the 1st Missouri Light Artillery, though not issued until early 1862. The rifles were used piecemeal among Batteries E, F and M. It was declared in August 1863 that they were the only eight 3.5 inch guns in the United States. The 1st Missouri Light Artillery had the largest concentration of 3.5 inch Blakely-calibre guns in one unit in North America; they fought from New Madrid through Vicksburg to Mobile in April 1865.
This purchase on behalf of the United States, so very early in the American war, goes a long way to account for the number of Bashley Britten 3½ inch patent shells found in battle sites in the West and down the Mississippi. It also led to the manufacture of Hotchkiss shot and shell in 3.5 inch calibre for the Union once the initial English shell purchase ran low in 1863.
The 3½ inch rifled cannon provided to Frémont were to Blakely’s “standard” model with the slender cast iron barrel, discrete breech sleeve and prominent trunnion ring similar to those provided in the same year to Peru. The barrel length was 68 inches, with seven-groove “square” rifling to Bashley Britten’s design. Although carrying Fawcett’s details, neither Blakely’s name nor his patent gun number appears on these tubes, no doubt, one can surmise, for good business reasons! 
3½ inch, 12 pounder Blakely Field Gun 1861 Only manufactured for the Confederate States Army The 12-pounder “Confederate” Field Guns 1861 - 62 For the Confederate States Army Captain Blakely and Fawcett, Preston & Company together developed a unique design of field gun that was not offered to any other purchaser. They are the commonest of all Blakely guns. It was to have an unusual bore of 3½ inches and a short barrel, having a cast-iron tube over which was shrunk a substantial steel cup or sleeve with a cascabel knob at the breech end and an elevating screw, the sleeve reaching to a flush-fitting trunnion ring. The rifling was of seven grooves to Bashley Britten’s square pattern, the piece intended to fire his patent lead-skirted cast-iron shells of 12 pounds weight. In theory this short gun could fire a solid bolt of much greater weight.
The novel visible feature of this piece was the flush-fitting trunnion ring, which merges almost seamlessly into the reinforcing breech sleeve.
The “Confederate 12 pounder” had a barrel 58 inches in overall length, with a maximum diameter on the steel sleeve of 9 ½ inches. It weighed 600 pounds. The barrel was not entirely satisfactory and several were later fitted with an iron band in front of the trunnions to counter act a perceived flaw in its preponderance, in that it was found breech-heavy in working. The Blakely serial numbers of these guns range from 24 to 36, and almost certainly to other ranges. They cost £110 each in England in August 1861, about $550 in gold, with brass sights and iron elevating screws but without carriages.
In America this is “the” Blakely gun. 
3½ inch, 12 pounder Blakely “long” field gun 1861 with a 66 inch as opposed to a 58 inch barrel of the common Confederate guns, and no cascabel knob. This piece, preserved at Beaufort, South Carolina, has a substitute bronze trunnion ring A Warren Ripley Picture
There were several other 3½ inch Blakely guns, in a confusing variety of models: In addition to the “Confederate” model, Fawcett Preston also provided the south in 1861 with a long 3.5 inch field gun to another Blakely design; this is almost identical, except in size, to the one provided in 1860 and used against Sumter. It had 66 inch barrel and was rifled with six Scott “centrical” or triangular grooves. The steel breech-sleeve was long and was oval-curved at the end, lacking a cascabel knob, with a maximum diameter of 12¼ inches. There was a small, flat-section, cast-iron trunnion ring. They are in the Blakely Serial range 46 to 52.
For reasons which are not now clear Blakely contracted with Fawcett Preston’s neighbours in Liverpool, the founders George Forrester & Company, in 1862 to make a cheaper version of the 12 pounder, 3½ inch bore short gun, 60 inches in length, but with a simple cylindrical steel ring, 6 inches long and 3 inches thick, to the breech of the cast-iron tube, rather than the cup-sleeve used by Fawcetts. This, too, had no cascabel knob. It looked like a miniature version of the large naval guns, and was rifled with six Scott “centrical” grooves.
Some further confusion is added by Fawcetts producing a 12 pounder, 3½ inch bore gun similar to those sold to the Peruvians in the same year, 1861. This is to Blakely’s “standard” design for field and mountain guns, which was continued in manufacture from 1861 until 1866. This 12 pounder had a cast-iron barrel with a slender, almost “invisible” steel sleeve to the breech and a massive cast-iron trunnion ring. It was 68 inches long with a cascabel fitted for an elevating screw, rifled with seven Bashley Britten “square” grooves, and having a maximum tube diameter of 10¼ inches. Only Fawcetts details and works numbers are cast in the barrel. It is almost certain that these were the guns supplied to J C Frémont in St Louis for United States service, as a continuation of Fawcett’s Peruvian contracts.
This Blakely “standard” model, with the slim barrel and large trunnion ring was used for 12 pounders, 9 pounders, 6 pounders and 4 pounders made by Fawcetts in Liverpool, at Blakely’s works at Bear Lane, and probably by other foundries commissioned by Blakely.
Fawcett, Preston & Company, who made the largest number of Blakely field guns, also made a simpler, heavier un-banded wrought-iron rifled field gun barrel for the Confederate States, similar to the Washington government’s “Ordnance Rifle”, but to 4 inch rather than 3 inch bore. This was not a Blakely piece. 
The Armed Steamer CSS Nashville The first Confederate States Steamer to reach Europe, outfitted with two small Blakely rifles The 6 pounder Navy Guns 1861 The steam packet Nashville was converted to a warship in the summer of 1861 at Charleston, South Carolina, for the Confederate States Navy. Due to the light nature of her mercantile construction only two guns were provided: small Blakely steel rifles of just 2½ inches bore, firing 6 pound bolts. These were mounted on deck pivots fore and aft of the engine-house and paddle-wheels to work both beams of the ship.
No details of their construction survive. The guns were provided by the State of South Carolina and were presumably similar to the field or cavalry guns made for the State by Fawcett, Preston & Company, adapted to sea service. They were not ordered by the Confederate States Navy. Captain Blakely noted his two small guns equipping the Nashville in a letter to The Times newspaper on April 7, 1862, regretting that an offer of larger pieces could not be taken up in a neutral port.
CSS Nashville left Charleston on October 21, 1861 and arrived at Southampton, England, on November 21, seizing on her voyage, despite her feeble armament, two enemy prizes. She was the first Confederate vessel to enter European waters. Leaving England on February 3, 1862 she returned through the enemy blockade to Beaufort, North Carolina, on February 28. 
“The Widow” 1863 An old photograph of the 7½ inch Blakely Low Moor Gun defending Vicksburg on the Mississippi, called “The Widow Blakely” after a popular song, her barrel was shortened after damage to the muzzle
The 7½ inch Low Moor Guns 1861 It was a basic premise of Blakely’s initial patent that old guns could be re-worked and strengthened to be used as rifles. The so-called Low Moor guns are the only examples of this principle. In July 1860 Blakely had offered to rifle and band any 32 pounder cast-iron naval gun in good condition for just £50 a piece. 
7.5 inch Blakely Low Moor Gun A conversion of the Royal Navy’s old 48 pounder, rifled and banded at the breech The cannon were remanufactured Royal Navy 48 pounder cast-iron smooth-bore pieces. It is not clear whether the Low Moor Iron Company of Bradford, Yorkshire, a long-time British government contractor also known in official records by the names of the proprietors Thomas and Charles Hood, merely provided the cast tubes for Fawcett, Preston & Company to re-work or actually performed the whole remanufacturing process. The cast tubes were not British government stock, but were manufactured new or taken from Low Moor’s inventory in 1861.
Blakely 7 ½ inch conversion 1861
This gun captured at Shipping Point, Quantico, Virginia, March 1862 As converted the old 124 inch long tube was turned down (machined to a cylinder) at the breech and a short “steel” or wrought-iron hoop or band sweated on. The original 100 inch long bore was turned out to 7 ½ inches and rifled with twelve square grooves of right hand twist. The “new” barrel then weighed 6,400 lbs (2.8 tons). The breech band was made from three rings of so-called “steel”, in all 17.5 inches long and 1.75 inches thick. The conversions are almost unique in the list of Blakely cannon by having the traditional “bell-mouth” muzzle casting. Several of these pieces were brought into Savannah, Georgia, in September 1861 on the brig-steamer Bermuda. Three more were lost in the following February when that blockade runner was captured.
One of the first of these 7½ inch calibre conversions was supplied to the Commonwealth of Virginia and set up at Shipping Point, near Quantico, on the Potomac river. Early in 1862 the Tredegar Foundry in Richmond supplied 900 additional shells for the piece. This, the sole Virginian Blakely gun, was spiked and abandoned to the enemy when Shipping Point was lost in March 1862. The barrel was recorded by her captors as being 10,759 pounds in weight, marked “Low Moor 1861”. The “Widow Blakely” remains as a relic of the Low Moor 7½ inch conversions; this piece was used to defend Vicksburg on the Mississippi - where she stands today. The muzzle of the “Widow” was damaged on July 22, 1863 and twenty-four inches had to be “sawn-off” the barrel, removing the distinctive moulding.
Blakely 8 inch exhibition cast-iron gun 1862 with a 9 pounder cast-steel gun propped against it, and a pile of Scott pattern shells Exhibition Pieces 1862 The Great Exhibition of 1862 in Kensington, West London gave Blakely his first chance to publicise his ordnance to the rest of the world. In this he was in competition with W G Armstrong (or rather Her Majesty’s Government who sponsored his display), Joseph Whitworth, Charles Lancaster, William Clay, Henry Bessemer and Friedrich Krupp, who each brought forth cannon large and small for show. Blakely exhibited three pieces:
There was an 8 inch calibre great gun weighing 16,000 pounds, rifled on Commander Scott’s “centrical” principle, of cast-iron banded at the breech, firing a 200 pound bolt, converted in Liverpool by Fawcett, Preston & Company from a 68 pounder tube cast by the Low Moor Iron Company. It was 12 feet in length with three layers of long wrought-iron rings or hoops, the outer one carrying the trunnions. The overall metal thickness was 5 to 6 inches at the muzzle and 12 inches at the breech. The bore was rifled with three Scott ratchets; the elongated shot being 16 inches long and spherical at both ends, with three rails or longitudinal flanges. 
Scott elongated shot for the Blakely 8 inch Exhibition gun The second gun was a light cast-steel 9 pounder field gun, also made by Fawcetts, of 2¾ inch bore, 66 inches long, with a trunnion ring, rifled with eight Scott ratchet grooves. The metal was ¾ inches thick at the muzzle and 2 inches at the breech. It fired 7 pound shells or 9 pound bolts up to 1,800 yards, on a wrought-iron mount that could serve for either boat or field use. The land carriage was 8 feet long, with iron cheek pieces, iron split trail, iron axle and iron wheels with double spokes.
The other piece was described as a naval gun, 3½ inches bore, 72 inches long, the tube of cast-steel with a trunnion ring. Its metal was 1 inch thick at the muzzle and 3 inches at the breech. It had eight Scott ratchet grooves and was mounted on a wooden truck carriage. 
Blakely 20 pounder 1862 The “Government” 20 pounders 1862 The earliest of the few Blakely guns acquired by the War Office in London were, apparently, a pair of 4¼ inch bore cast-iron pieces with steel or wrought-iron breech bands, to Blakely’s common pattern of the early 1860s. They have been measured as weighing 2 tons, being 78 inches overall, rifled with eight Scott-pattern ratchet grooves, and were made by Fawcett, Preston & Co., in Liverpool. In appearance they are similar to the 7 inch guns for sea-service made in the same year, 1862, with a cast-iron barrel and a single hoop about the breech. They also carry all the elaborate maker’s marks and patent serials of Fawcett’s early sea-service and field pieces.
Both of these Blakely 20 pounders still exist, one with the Royal Armouries at Fort Nelson, Portsmouth, Hampshire, described as being recovered from Tilbury Fort, near the Shoeburyness ordnance proving grounds in Essex. It is marked as Blakely patent gun number 69. The sister piece is now at Chatham Historic Dockyard, Kent, across the Thames estuary from Shoeburyness, variously measured as 4¼ or 4½ inch calibre, and marked as patent gun number 67. Details of the history of No 67 are elusive, but it was probably saved from scrap by a private individual. It is reasonable to assume that the intervening patent gun number 68 was to a similar pattern.
There are no records as to how these early Blakely pieces came into British government hands. It is possible that, rather than being a military purchase, these two guns were rescued from the site of the Blakely Ordnance Company’s plant at East Greenwich in the 1970s, where they served, after its closure in 1866, as “gatekeepers” to a gasworks.
20 pounder, 4¼ inch bore Blakely rifle 1862 Made by Fawcett, Preston & Co in Liverpool. Blakely Patent Gun No 67 now at Chatham Historic Dockyard, Kent, England Picture courtesy Paul Williams Guns for the Emperor of Morocco 1862 Subsequent to the Spanish Moroccan war of 1859, the Emperor of Morocco obtained a £500,000 loan in the city of London early in 1862 with which to pay reparations to Madrid. A proportion of the loan was also set aside to reequip the Moorish army. In October 1862 the Blakely Cannon Company, as part of these reforms, provided the Emperor with a mounted artillery train.
The composition of the train is not recorded, but it may have been the six 3½ inch rifled guns, six 4 inch rifled guns and four 12 pounder smooth-bore howitzer-guns ordered of Fawcett, Preston & Company by Captain Blakely in March 1862. It was in any event very complete, including a 42 foot long pontoon bridge to Captain Francis Fowke’s design of 1858. Each of the four canvas and wood pontoons was collapsible like an accordion, being 24 feet by 5¼ feet when extended. 
4½ inch Blakely Gun ordered for the Confederate States Navy in 1861, but used instead at Fort Pulaski, Savannah
The 4½ inch Navy Guns 1862 In a letter of August 13, 1861, Commander Bulloch CSN reported that in addition to heavy 7 inch guns he had bought four 4.5 inch Blakely rifles of 4,700 pounds weight, firing a 65 pound bolt, for use on one of the two cruisers he was commissioning in Liverpool. However they were never used afloat and all four were shipped from Liverpool into the Confederate States at Savannah, Georgia, on the screw steamer Fingal in November 1861. They were then put to army account and two of them were used in the defence of Fort Pulaski, off Savannah, until April 11, 1862. The Fingal also was put to good use, her hull was cut down and heavily armoured in Savannah, to become the Confederate States Navy’s ironclad warship CSS Atlanta, steaming out to challenge the blockade on July 31, 1862.
The 4.5 inch guns were novel in appearance, being much enlarged versions of the “Confederate” 3½ inch field guns manufactured by Fawcett, Preston & Company, with a long steel breech sleeve but having a breech ring for sea-service rather than a cascabel knob. They had seven groove “square” rifling with right-hand twist, to Bashley Britten’s patent. Two still survive, they are numbered 41 and 42 in the Blakely series, and carry Commander Bulloch’s inspection mark JDB on the trunnion, as do their larger 7 inch sisters. They each measure 96 inches overall in length. 
4½ inch Blakely rifle Now located outside of the Town Hall in New Canaan, Connecticut Said to be a Confederate cannon Another, quite different, 4.5 inch Blakely gun still exists, at New Canaan in Connecticut. Its history is wholly unknown at the moment. This piece, recorded as Patent Gun Number 162, is of Blakely’s standard design for larger ordnance with a cast-iron tube and a short steel breech band or hoop. The breech end, unlike its earlier sisters, has jaws for a breeching-rope, as in a naval gun. The tube has been measured recently as being 84 inches long overall, with a breech band 21 inches long by 15 inches in outside diameter. It is simply marked on the hoop “Blakely’s Patent”. In appearance it is a slightly larger version of the two British government 20 pounders. Several 4½ inch calibre projectiles with Scott flanges have been found near Fort Fisher, Wilmington, possibly indicating that Blakely patent gun No 162, with three-groove “centrical” rifling, was part of the defence of the vital North Carolina port. 
Sloop-of-War CSS Florida Armed with two 7 inch Blakely rifles and six 6¼ inch Bashley Britten rifles
The 6 inch Navy Guns 1862 Very little is known about these pieces. Two 6 inch Blakely rifled guns were supplied to Garibaldi’s revolutionary“Red Shirts” in Piedmont during August 1860 at a cost of £540. Six were provided for the broadside armament of the CSS Florida when she left Liverpool in March 1862. No other 6 inch Blakely rifles are known. It must be assumed that they were smaller versions of the 7 inch Navy steel-banded, cast-iron rifles provided as pivot guns for the Alabama and the Florida, firing 70 pound bolts and 52 pound shells.
The six 6 inch Blakely guns on the Florida were said to be cast-iron, steel-banded rifles mounted on trucks on the broadsides, firing, according to US Navy inspectors, 53 pound hollow shot containing sand or 52 pound percussion shell. The sand-filled “hollow shot” (dumb shells) presumably indicating that Florida had run out of 6 inch solid bolts by the time of her seizure in Brazil. 
6.25 inch “Bashley Britten” gun 1862 (?) A cast-iron 8 grooved rifled cannon by Low Moor from the CSS Florida The cruiser’s broadside guns were apparently not Blakely’s as is often claimed A John Reilly Picture However there exists at Washington Navy Yard a single 6¼ inch cast-iron rifle, described as taken off the CSS Florida. This is not a Blakely patent gun, as it has a “conventional” ribbed and ornamented tube without any evidence of being banded at the breech. It is marked as a Low Moor piece, number 10666, claimed to be a converted 32 pounder smooth-bore. With its novel 6¼ inch bore and eight-groove rifling, it cannot be a conversion from the 6.4 inch calibre of the 32 pounder. It may be a unique example not of a “Blakely” but of a “Bashley Britten” pattern gun. Britten had been negotiating with J D Bulloch of the Confederate States Navy for use of his patent shells and could have offered his own simple un-banded rifled guns. The Florida may therefore have been outfitted with two 7 inch Blakely rifles and six 6 or 6¼ inch Bashley Britten guns.
7 inch Blakely Gun from the wreck of the sloop-of-war CSS Florida One of its sisters from the Alabama is shown below, the Florida’s does not have the undercut breeching jaws or cascabel A John Reilly Picture
The 7 inch Navy Guns 1862 The most well-known Blakely cannon are those carried by the cruisers Alabama and Florida. In both vessels the most significant pieces were of 7 inch calibre; a size similar to those recently acquired by the Royal Navy. Compared with later guns they were of relatively simple construction; a rifled cast-iron tube and a steel or, more accurately, wrought-iron breech-band to absorb the initial stresses. Writing on August 13, 1861, Commander J D Bulloch CSN in England reported to Secretary of the Navy S R Mallory in Richmond, that he had purchased four 7 inch Blakely rifles, each weighing 9,185 pounds for the Alabama and the Florida, along with 1,200 Bashley Britten patent shells. He later added to the order a number of 42-pound Bessemer spherical steel shot for these four rifled guns, especially for piercing armour. 
The famous sloop-of-war CSS Alabama Armed with one 7 inch Blakely rifle, one 8 inch“ pressure-curved” smooth bore, two conventional 32 pounders and four “pressure-curved” 32 pounders Commander Bulloch subsequently reported to Secretary Mallory on March 21, 1862 that he intended to outfit the two cruisers with one 7 inch Blakely pivot gun each. He had then shipped to Nassau, New Providence, in the Bahamas, four 7 inch guns, “traversing carriages, and slides with pivot bolts and brass sweeps for the decks”, along with 400 solid shot and 600 shell, “all loaded and fused”, to await the Florida.
Each 7 inch calibre gun was 120 inches long from muzzle to cascabel and weighed 7,800 pounds (3.5 tons), being bored to seven inches, and rifled with nine square grooves of a right-hand twist to Bashley Britten’s patent. The breech-band was created from a spiral bar forged into a single short cylinder. They were commonly referred to at the time as “100 pounders”; in fact they took solid iron bolts of up to 120 pounds weight.
7 inch Blakely Gun from the CSS Alabama, originally mounted as a pivot piece on the fore deck The “steel” breech bands showing their spiral structure after deteriorating underwater for 130 years
Sailors of the period were unused to handling large ordnance and were critical of the recoil, saying the barrel was “light”. There were also criticisms of the breech-banding of these early pieces, the forged spiral coils of which had a propensity to “open” when heated by continuous firing.
A 7 inch Blakely naval gun from the Florida is preserved at West Point, it is marked No 37. A companion 7 inch Blakely has been recovered from the Alabama off Cherbourg. Both were made by Fawcett, Preston & Company in Liverpool with the acceptance mark JDB for James Dunwoody Bulloch, agent of the Confederate States navy in Liverpool. It seems that “Fossets” made twelve of these 7 inch calibre great guns for the Confederate States Navy in 1862 and 1863; costing about £500 each. The guns and ammunition of the Florida were catalogued by the US Navy in 1864. There were then two 7 inch cast-iron, steel banded rifles mounted on pivots on the centre-line on board, these firing 100 pound solid bolts or 84 pound percussion shells, and six 6 inch Blakely (see above) broadside pieces, rather than the planned four 4½ inch Blakely guns. 
7 inch Blakely Gun No 145 The forward pivot gun of CSS Alabama in 1862, note the unique undercut cascabel to allow greater elevation The Alabama was outfitted as planned with the single 7 inch Blakely on a centre-line pivot forward, an 8 inch calibre 68 pounder smooth-bore on a pivot aft, and six truck-mounted 32 pounder smooth-bores on the broadsides. The 8 inch and four of the 32 pounders were also cast in iron by Fawcett, Preston & Company in Liverpool to an advanced “pressure curved” design, remarkably similar to that devised by Captain John Dahlgren in America. All of these guns were purchased from the makers in the name of Captain Blakely. The remaining two 32 pounder cast-iron smooth-bores were of “conventional” make, with ornamental bands, ribs and cascabel rings, probably, since Fawcetts never made such guns for the Royal Navy, bought from the stock of the Low Moor Iron Company. Interestingly Blakely wrote to Captain John Dahlgren USN on March 19, 1858 describing his mode of strengthening ordnance and of his gun trials. Captain Dahlgren replied in a letter dated April 1, 1858. Perhaps Dahlgren provided Blakely with manufacturing specifications for the “pressure curved” principle then or in subsequent correspondence.
8 inch Blakely Low Moor Gun The 8 inch Low Moor Guns 1862 In addition to the relatively well-known 7 ½ inch conversions the Low Moor Company also adapted the cast-iron tubes of the Royal Navy 68 pounder gun into a much more effective 8 inch calibre rifled piece. This was originally a smooth-bore shell-firing gun, the Navy’s largest piece before rifling was introduced, and weighed 10,500 pounds. As with the 7½ inch conversions the 8 inch barrels were either made new or from commercial stock; the work done either by Low Moor or by Low Moor and Fawcett Preston. Blakely had first demonstrated this inexpensive adaptation in 1857.
The conversion process was different from the 7½ inch guns. The cast-iron tubes, with all their traditional “ornamental” rings and modelling, had the breech end turned into a cylinder, and, instead of the breech band, a long, well-rounded steel jacket was forced on to just before the trunnions; the muzzles keeping their traditional moulding. The rifling was also different from the 7½ inch guns; just three “centrical” right-hand twist grooves were cut. This all allowed an increase in the maximum projectile weight from a 68 pound round-shot to a 130 pound Scott-pattern flanged bolt.
There were, it seems, just six of these large 8 inch rifled guns, imported into the Confederate States. Three were brought in through Wilmington by the blockade runner Merrimac on April 21, 1863, to supplement three already present. One of these was retained at Fort Fisher, Wilmington, one was installed at Battery Wagner near Charleston and one at Fort Morgan, near Mobile. Spies employed by the abolitionist navy reported that a 8 inch Blakely rifle at Fort Morgan weighed between 11,000 and 12,000 pounds, firing a 196 pound flanged bolt or a 160 pound flanged shell, with 14 pounds of propellant powder. The first three 8 inch guns were invoiced to Caleb Huse at £1,700 or £566 each. The shipment was accompanied by 680 shells, costing £1,180 in all.
8 inch Blakely Low Moor conversion 1862 A photograph from 1864 at Fort Morgan, Mobile Bay Before the arrival of the two 13 inch guns these were the largest Blakely guns in the south. Although simple and cheap conversions they proved most effective in their three stations. An example still exists. During December 1863 the Low Moor Company was making new guns of large calibre to the Blakely patents, with cast iron tubes and multiple steel or wrought iron bands, for the Russian navy. This was part of a large contract that Blakely had obtained in that year. 
4 inch Fawcett Preston cast-iron rifle 1862 Miss-called a Blakely piece, on a Fawcett Preston wrought-iron carriage A John Reilly Picture The 4 inch “Blakely” or rather “Fawcett Preston” guns 1862 From his personal papers we know that on June 9, 1863 Colonel William N Pendleton, chief of artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia, offered the artillery battalion commanders of the Second Corps a battery of 4 inch, 18 pounder Blakely guns, “fresh from England with 200 rounds of ammunition each, iron carriages & everything complete”. As he wanted to swap the 4 inch “Blakelys” for 3 inch rifles his offer was declined; Pendleton then offered them to the First Corps, apparently better equipped with heavy pieces. Again the new guns were refused. There are several references to a lone 4 inch Blakely gun working at Battery Haskell on Legare’s Point on James Island, south of Charleston, South Carolina, between July and December 1863. Although repeatedly called a Blakely in official reports of the time it was almost certainly made to a proprietary design by Fawcett, Preston & Company, who produced many Blakely guns, cast in iron without breech bands or hoops. In appearance the 4 inch gun was similar to the US ordnance rifle, but much larger, with an 83 inch barrel rifled with 6 grooves, and was mounted on a wrought-iron carriage identical in design to that provided by Fawcetts to Peru in 1861. The 4 inch “Fawcett Preston” gun fired Bashley Britten’s patent shells; when supplies of these dried up the locally-made substitute projectiles were found inadequate, leading to many complaints by the gunners over accuracy and range. A 4 inch Fawcett Preston gun, number 136 of 1862, also marked 921 on the muzzle, was displayed at Washington Navy Yard. It used to be mounted on a Fawcett Preston wrought-iron carriage, but they are now separated. It has recently been restored and will be exhibited at Raleigh, North Carolina. Another 4 inch Fawcett Preston gun on a wrought-iron carriage, number 138, recovered from the Roanoke river, is at Fort Branch, Hamilton, North Carolina. The numbers carried are not from the Blakely Patent series, in fact they are duplicated there, they are from Fawcett Preston’s general work list. 
The wrought-iron field carriage of a 4 inch “Blakely” gun The plate-frame is the same as that provided to Peru in 1861 by Fawcett Preston, its axle is resting on another carriage in cast-iron at Washington Arsenal The 4 inch gun was a design of Fawcett’s too, and not a Blakely piece Picture courtesy of Max Caliber The Battery of the “Alexandra” 1863 In March 1863 the shipyard of William C Miller & Company in Liverpool launched a 300 ton wooden gunboat provisionally called the Alexandra. She was ordered by Fawcett, Preston & Company, the engineers of the same city, who also provided her 60 horsepower engine. Separately in October 1862, to equip the gunboat, Captain Blakely had instructed Fawcett’s to provide one 6.4 inch rifled gun and two 4.6 inch rifles. 
The Gunboat called Alexandra Built for the Confederate States, to armed with three Blakely rifles
These were unique guns requiring the design of new mounts and tools. Fawcett’s provided one 9 foot long 6.4 inch gun, with a pivot carriage and slide, deck sweeps, sight, shells, shell lighter, grapeshot, powder scoop, deck chucks and “extra ordnance”, as Blakely Patent Gun number 187, and two 4.6 inch guns, plus deck sweeps, sights, shells, shell extractors, shell lighters, sponges and rammers, shears for firing with friction tubes and deck chucks, which were Blakely guns number 193 and 194. An existing design of carriage was apparently used for the 4.6 inch guns.
The specification of these three pieces is not known, but evidence given in court during June 1863 by Fawcett’s workmen mentions that the large gun was 48 inches in overall length and the two smaller guns were 36 inches; all three, as the order book notes, on compressor carriages, the side pieces in elm, the slides in teak, with races for pivot mounting. It became apparent that the Alexandra was to be sold to the Confederate States on completion and the abolitionist government began a long law suit to prevent her leaving Liverpool. In anticipation of this, it was reported that in May, 1863, Blakely had the three guns, along with their carriages, accoutrement and 18 tons of shells, shipped in seventeen packages from Liverpool by rail to the Camden Town goods depot in London. They then apparently vanish from history, or do they...? 
Armed Steamer CSS Georgia Outfitted with one 6.4 inch Blakely rifle, two 4.6 inch Blakely rifles and two 12 pounder Whitworth guns
The Battery of the CSS “Georgia” 1863 According to a letter published in 1909 by James Morris Morgan, who had served as a midshipman on the CSS Georgia, the 600 ton iron-hulled cruiser commissioned by Matthew Maury, her battery comprised a 32 pounder Blakely rifled gun on a forward pivot and two 24 pounder Blakely’s on the broadsides with two small 10 pounder breech-loading Whitworth guns as stern-chasers on the ship’s poop deck. In his letter he denied the claim that her outfit consisted only of Whitworth guns, saying that he had had command of the only two Whitworths onboard the CSS Georgia.
The Georgia’s three Blakely guns must have been the 6.4 inch rifle and the two 4.6 inch rifles ordered for the gunboat Alexandra from Fawcett, Preston & Co in 1862. They were rushed by railway to London and there loaded on to the 85 ton steam tug Alar. The tug rendezvoused with and transferred her cargo of ordnance to the Georgia off Ushant in France on April 6, 1863 after picking up Midshipman Morgan and crew for the cruiser at the port of Newhaven in the English Channel. Morgan had been previously allotted a berth on the Confederate gunboat called Alexandra.
CSS Georgia returned to Liverpool on May 1, 1864 after her war cruise and was sold out of service. Her guns and their deck fitments were reported by enemy agents as having been removed and placed in store in Birkenhead, opposite Liverpool, on June 6, 1864 during a refit. 
Blakely 9 inch gun for the Laird Rams The 9 inch Navy Guns 1864 Just four of these were manufactured of the eight commissioned of Fawcett, Preston & Company in 1862 by Commander J D Bulloch, CSN, for delivery in the following year. They were intended for the two armoured turret ships, the CSS North Carolina and CSS Mississippi, building in Laird Brothers yard in Birkenhead, across the river Mersey from Liverpool, as Ship Orders 294 and 295, the famous “Laird Rams”. 
The Laird Ram CSS North Carolina Armed with four 9 inch Blakely rifles in two turrets and two 70 pounder Whitworth guns Built to Blakely’s latest pattern, they had two steel inner tubes with a cast-iron sleeve for tensional strength. In addition a 70 pounder Whitworth gun was to be provided as a “chaser” on the bow and on the stern of each vessel. The 9 inch gun was 12 feet in length, the bore was 131 inches long and it weighed 11.75 tons. Their solid bolts weighed 240 pounds. The inner steel tube was 15 inches in diameter, the outer steel tube, 22.75 inches diameter, with a 38 inch diameter cast-iron jacket that also had the trunnions cast in. The four pieces cost, according to a letter from Commander Bulloch dated December 28, 1862, £8,000. 
One of the 9 inch Blakely guns in enemy hands at Charlestown in the 1870s Their manufacture was delayed when the British government seized the Laird Rams in 1863. Although desperately needed for coastal defence the 9 inch guns were never sent to the Confederate States but kept on an open wharf at Liverpool, England, in Blakely’s name. All four were later claimed on May 8, 1867 in the Courts by the United States government. They were eventually delivered to Charlestown, Boston, in August 1871, along with a large quantity of iron bolts and shells, and the four Whitworth bow and stern “chasers”, when valued at £25,000. Substantial parts of one of the 9 inch navy guns still exist; it is marked No 221.
A 9 inch Blakely rifled gun made for the Laird rams 1864 The photograph from the 1890s is said to be at Brooklyn Navy Yard It is next to the 8 inch Wiard cast-iron gun of the same period Below, the same 9 inch Blakely rifle today at Bernhard’s Bay, Oneida Lake, New York 
“Canon rayé de 30” - Blakely Voruz 1864 A reconstruction from a casting by the volunteers of the Brigada Naval, exhibited at the Escuela Naval, Callao, Peru
The “Canon de 30 par Voruz” 1864
The last major contract fulfilled by Captain Blakely for the Confederate States was that for the armament of four corvettes, CSS Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, ordered by Commander J D Bulloch, CSN, in France. Forty-eight 16 cm cannon were ordered with 200 rounds of shot and shell per piece of J Voruz, Nantes, France; founders and engine makers. Unlike all of his other dealings with the south the details of the financial arrangements for this contract exist.
The correspondence quoted below is from Washington’s Official Records; the translation from the French is theirs. The repeated reference to “30 pounders” in these records is a mistranslation of “canon de 30”, actually a piece firing a 30 kilogram (68 pound) cylindrical shot. The forty-eight Voruz guns were of 6¾ inches calibre and each weighed 6,400 pounds.
Jean Voruz, senior, to Anthony Voruz (son) – July 14, 1863 “The affair with Blakely is consummated and very good, above all furnishing two hundred shot per gun. The bargain is closed for forty-eight pieces. The forty-eight 30-pounder pieces have been sold to Bulloch for 7,000 francs per gun. At this price we will give to Blakely ten per-cent on this figure, which will be 700 francs. The remainder, that is to say, the difference between our price for the work and the 6,300 francs, will be divided one-half to Blakely and the other half of the profits between Arnous and ourselves. The shot have always paid us 40 francs the kilo, and we owe nothing to Blakely (on these). I have the plan of the machine for grooving cannon.” A T Blakely to J Voruz, senior – July 14, 1863 “I beg you to make at once forty-eight 30 pounders and 9,000 shot according to the drawings I gave you.”
J Voruz, senior, to the Minster of Marine – July 15, 1863 “The cannon I am constructing will be made to the pattern of Mr Blakely of London.”
J Voruz, senior, to the Minister of Marine – July 29, 1863 “I ask the authority to make in my gun factories at Nantes the forty-eight 30 pounders. Each cannon will be provided with two-hundred cylindro-conical shot, and with all the necessary accessories of armament. The cannon will be of cast-iron banded with steel.”
Minister of Marine, P de Chasseloup-Laubat to J Voruz, senior – August 1, 1863 “Authorisation to make the guns is granted.”
J Voruz, senior, to the Minister of Agriculture & Commerce – June 8, 1863 “5,000 cylindro-conical shot will use 150,000kg of metal. A drawback on the custom duties is requested.” (Demonstrating that each shot weighed 30 kilograms; they were not Blakely patent projectiles but French-pattern with three rows of two studs on the body) Two of the new corvettes, intended to be the Texas and the Georgia, built at Nantes in France, eventually, after passing through several hands as San Francisco and Shanghai, were sold to Peru in December 1865, along with their armament of Blakely Voruz guns. They became the Peruvian warships América and Unión. Between 1866 and 1867 four of the ‘Cañones de 30’ on the corvettes burst at the muzzle. Colonel Francisco Bolognesi of the Peruvian Army, one of Blakely’s original customers, investigated the failures and discovered that the shell fuses provided by Voruz were faulty. The remaining Blakely guns continued in Peruvian naval service into the 1880s.
Two of these 68 pounder banded guns recovered from the wreck of one of the corvettes subsequently sold to Peru, clearly marked “J Voruz, Nantes 1864”, exist as well-restored relics in that country. They are similar in external appearance to the early 7 inch navy guns supplied to the CSS Florida and CSS Alabama. As measured, the barrels were 6.375 inches in calibre, rifled with three deep elliptical grooves to the French model, and weighed 8,000 pounds. They were capable of firing studded bolts up to 100 pounds. 
9 in Blakely “Compound” gun 1863 Made from steel, wrought-iron and cast-iron Photographed at Woolwich Arsenal where it was being proved
The “Compound” Guns 1863 Before Blakely perfected the all-steel 9 and 11 inch guns in 1864 he produced a number of great guns, mainly it seems in 9 inch calibre, with a forged-steel barrel and two thick cast-steel hoops or bands. In the “Compound” model the truly massive trunnion ring was made of cast-iron, but in later common models this was substituted by wrought-iron and then by steel. The design is an intermediate, and somewhat clumsy, device using a mass of metal rather than any innate strength to counter initial tension. The “Compound” Guns were made as follows: “The inner tube or barrel is formed of low steel; the next tube consists of high steel, and is shrunk on the barrel with just sufficient tension to compensate for the difference of elasticity between the two. The outer jacket to which the trunnions are attached is of cast iron, and is put on with only the shrinkage attained by warming it over the fire. The steel tubes are cast hollow and hammered over steel mandrels by steam hammers, by which process they are elongated about 130 per cent., and the tenacity of the metal at the same time increased”. When the production and forging of steel became more advanced in the following months Blakely’s great guns, with steel tubes, longer steel hoops and, most obviously, flush-fitted steel trunnion rings, became far less bulky. It is not currently known for whom the “Compound” guns were made. In any event the principle seems to have been quickly discarded, leaving several such pieces in Blakely’s hands. The guns made by Putnam for Massachusetts in 1864 and 1865, and later sold to Chili, were to this model. China 1863 During 1863 Henry Leighton & Company, merchants, of 19 Mark Lane, London, and Shanghai, China, commissioned Captain Blakely to make several batteries of field artillery for the Pekin government. Twelve pieces of muzzle-loading rifled ordnance, with steel barrels and iron outer sleeves added by hydraulic pressure, were ordered for delivery in January 1864: ● Two 20 pounders at £150 ● Four 12 pounders at £95 ● Four 9 pounders at £75 ● Two 6 pounders at £50
This totalled £1,080 on which a commission of 15% was allowed. In addition Blakely contracted to provide the carriages for another £1,080, on which 8% commission was included; shell for £848; and solid shot for £150 on which no commission was paid. The 12 pounder shot was costed at 3s each, the rest in proportion.
The China contract was to total £3,158; however the price of iron and steel soared during the year 1863 and it was eventually settled at £4,112. Phillip Henry Benett of Henry Leighton & Company assisted in the creation of the Tavistock Ironworks & Steel Ordnance Company, Limited, Blakely’s first attempt at direct manufacture in 1864. Guns for Russia 1863 The largest of all orders received by Captain Blakely was that from the Imperial government in St Petersburg, Russia. Initiated in 1863, it was believed to total 160 great guns for fortresses and for the fleet. During the next two years the Blakely works were finishing two pieces a month for Russia, varying in bore from 9 inches, for the Russian fleet, to 11 inches, for the forts. In 1865 St Petersburg commissioned a massive 15 inch steel rifle of the Blakely Ordnance Company, the largest piece of ordnance in the world at that moment, completed in 1866.
The details, in so far as they are known, of this contract are contained in the chapter “Cannon for Russia”. It is hoped to discover more on Captain Blakely’s relationship with the Imperial government in St Petersburg.
11inch Blakely Gun from 1864 in Peru Pictured at the Servicio Industrial de la Marina during its restoration with the assistance of the volunteers of the Brigada Naval
Peruvian Guns 1864 During the American War the Blakely concern was also involved in supplying great guns to the beleaguered state of Peru in Latin America, defending itself against a resurgent Spain and latterly against its immediate neighbour, Chili. Although Colonel Francisco Bolognesi had, in 1861, previously purchased 54 field, boat and mountain guns to Blakely’s patents, more artillery was soon needed. In April 1864 the Peruvian Consul in London was instructed to order twelve 11 inch calibre Blakely guns in two contracts each of six pieces. These were the first pieces finished at the new Blakely Ordnance Company works at Blackwall Point, made from cast-steel elements provided by Naylor Vickers in Sheffield. The order was completed in January 1865.
The original contract between Don Enrique Kendall, for the government of Peru and “Don Teófilo A Blakely” for the Blakely Ordnance Company, signed on July 21, 1864, specified that the 11 inch guns be made to Blakely’s patent, that they were to be entirely of steel, except for the trunnions which were of cast-iron, and that each was to be provided with 300 bolts and 300 shells. The contract cost was £5,500 per gun.
Additionally, in 1864 Colonel Bolognesi ordered 600 shells for the 9 pounder Blakely mountain guns bought in 1861, and shot and shell for his government’s Blakely 12 pounder field and 4 pounder mountain guns. The Peruvian military historian Juan del Campo writes: “In 1864, the Peruvian Government instructed its Consul in London, Mr Enrique Kendall, to buy, among other weapons and ammunition, twelve pieces of artillery, all 11-inch Blakelys. The guns were sold through two contracts that provided six pieces each. In April of that year a Peruvian military mission lead by artillery Colonel Francisco Bolognesi was sent to England to supervise the transaction and the quality of the armament. The guns arrived in Peru in early 1865. At [the battle of] “Dos de Mayo” eight heavy Blakelys were used. For example, at the northern defences, Fort Ayacucho had two 450-pound Blakelys while the Railroad Battery had a 450- pound Blakely gun. Two more 450-pound Blakelys were placed at the southern defences (Fort Santa Rosa). During the war with Chile, some changes were made. The Santa Rosa fort kept her two 11-inch Blakelys. The Manco Capac and Independencia turrets [or batteries] had two 11-inch Blakelys each, while Fort Ayacucho kept one 11-inch Blakely.” 
450 pounder or 11 inch Blakely cannon at Callao in 1866 Bolognesi’s Blakely guns for Callao harbour were installed “just in time” to famously confront and drive away the Spanish fleet intending to re-establish their Latin American empire on May 2, 1866, Dos de Mayo. The date became a Peruvian national holiday. For this reason Blakely is far better known in Peru than in any other country.
One of these 11 inch calibre, 14 ton cannon has been restored to “working order” in Peru, and is on display at Callao on a wrought-iron Blakely-Vavasseur compressor carriage. With a 144 inch long barrel, weighing 28,000 pounds, it fired a 450 pound shot and was rifled with 24 ratchet grooves. Pieces for Russia and other countries were also made to this advanced model in 1865 and 1866. The barrels were made up to a calibre of 12 inches, to throw 700 pound projectiles, and weighing as much as 40,000 lbs. Blakely’s professional colleague and friend, Colonel Francisco Bolognesi returned to Peru at the end of May 1866. On March 8, 1868 he was appointed to command the artillery regiment in Callao. In and out of active service due to disagreements with the country’s President, Bolognesi was to die a hero’s death at Arica at the head of the besieged Peruvian garrison on June 7, 1880, age 63. His last words to his troops, which entered the popular Spanish vocabulary, were that he would fulfil his duty “until the last round is fired”. 
11 inch Blakely rifled gun, as supplied to Callao, Peru, 1865 A contemporary French engraving Guns for Denmark 1864 In February 1864 it was reported that the Blakely company was producing “a large number” of guns for Demark, then involved with a war with Prussia and Austria. The shortness of the conflict may have terminated any contract made. War Office Guns 1864 At last, on February 3, 1864, it was announced in the newspapers that the War Office would commission Blakely to provide an 11 inch steel gun for test and comparison with its own and with William Armstrong’s latest pieces. On September 24, 1864 at Woolwich butts a Blakely 11 inch hammered-steel fortress gun, with a barrel weighing 14 tons, was proof fired on behalf of the War Office! On the first day it was successfully tried with 45 pounds of powder and a 240 pound steel bolt. Four days later it was fired without any untoward affect using 60 pounds of powder and a 600 pound bolt. On September 28, 1864 a Blakely 7 inch steel naval gun was put to test at the butts for the War Office. Its barrel weighed 6 tons 2 cwt, and was rifled with eighteen ratchet grooves. It was proved with 31.25 pounds of powder and a 110 pound steel bolt. The same gun was tried again at the Army’s long shooting range at Shoeburyness on the Thames estuary early in February 1865.
Following this the War Office made the embarrassing admission in the autumn of 1864 that Armstrong’s gun carriages were not capable of handling “Big Will’s” newest barrels; their friction plates seized on firing and the iron cross-pieces fractured. They were compelled to acquire gun carriages from Blakely to Josiah Vavasseur’s ingenious design; only they could cope with the recoil of the most powerful great guns. Yankee Blakelys - Guns for Massachusetts 1864 It was the thoroughly abolitionist Commonwealth of Massachusetts that acquired the only Blakely guns to serve the Union. On June 2, 1863 the state ordered its agent in England to purchase ten 11 inch cast-iron, steel-banded rifles and twelve 9 inch cast-iron, steel-banded rifles for the defence of its coastline. They were to be delivered at Boston on or before September 15, 1863 at a cost of £6,500. This was an impossible deadline and the Massachusetts authorities knew it; on October 1 only four of the twenty-two pieces were completed. They then altered the terms to substitute twelve all-steel guns of Blakely’s most advanced design for the outstanding eighteen cast-iron ones. To cover their immediate coastal defence needs Massachusetts ordered fifty simple 68 pounder smooth-bore cast-iron cannon from the Low Moor ironworks in Bradford, England, to be delivered in four months. These smoothbores were shipped from Portsmouth by the North German Lloyd steamers to New York. As it became clear during 1863 that Blakely’s sources of crucible steel for ordnance, Naylor Vickers in Sheffield and Friedrich Krupp in Essen, Prussia, could not cope with demand, the contract with Massachusetts was terminated with just three 11 inch and four 9 inch guns delivered. In compensation a new agreement was made by which the Commonwealth might make its own Blakely cannon from unfinished parts made in Sheffield. The original price of the Massachusetts guns did not, by 1864, cover manufacturing costs and so Blakely was pleased to sell balance of the unfinished contract for the 11 and 9 inch pieces to Russia with a substantial margin for his profit! The Putnam Machine Company of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, was commissioned to manufacture two 11 inch calibre, 43,000 pounds weight, jacketed and banded Blakely guns for the defence of Boston Harbour in October 1863. These were completed in an extensive new gun works during the spring of 1865, seemingly with plans for other pieces. Each 11 inch cannon cost Massachusetts, apparently, $25,000, equal to £6,000. Could this purchase be the influence of Daniel Treadwell of Harvard, his friend and mentor?
Each 11 inch piece had a solid forged steel barrel of 22 inch diameter, reinforced by a single steel jacket of 33 inches diameter and an exceptionally massive cast trunnion ring. The pattern was that which Blakely had devised in 1863, usually called the “Compound” gun, using, originally, three metals. The 11 inch spherical shot weighed 375 pounds; but it was capable of firing a 525 pound solid bolt.
The Commonwealth also ordered eight 9 inch calibre Blakely cannon of Putnam. These were not completed by the war’s end. They were constructed with a steel core, a breech jacket, breech hoops and a large, cast trunnion ring, intended to weigh 22,450 pounds, firing a 248 pound shot. The steel for all of these guns was imported from Naylor, Vickers & Company of Sheffield, England.
On December 18, 1865 the military authorities in Massachussetts reported that they had at their disposal for coastal defence ten Blakely guns, five 11 inch, four 9 inch and one 8 inch, along with the fifty Low Moor 68 pounders. Regarding ammunition, for the 11 inch guns they had to hand 38 steel spherical shot, 50 iron bolts, 35 iron shells and 11 steel shells. For the 9 inch cannon, 70 steel spherical shot, 44 steel bolts, 23 iron bolts, 27 iron shells and 50 steel shells. They also had 310 steel shot for the 8 inch Blakely and for the Low Moor 68 pounders. The odd 8 inch Blakely gun would appear to be one of six Blakely and Whitworth pieces captured by the US Navy in 1861 and 1862 on the blockade running steamers Bermuda and Princess Royal. They were offered to the Commonwealth on July 20, 1863 by Captain H A Wise USN, Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, as being as good as the latest Blakelys but very much cheaper. Massachusetts apparently bought one of the three contraband Blakelys for trials. As an epitaph to this the Governor and Council of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts sold by public auction four years later, during February 8, 1868, on the new site formerly occupied by the Putnam Machine Company, Water Street, Fitchburg – the great gun lathe and other machinery used in the making of this heavy ordnance. It should be added that the old-established Putnam Machine Company long survived their venture into ordnance. The suite of ordnance equipment created by Putnam comprised the 40 foot long Gun Lathe and its auxiliary tooling, weighing 58,000 pounds, and a Rifling Machine with cutters for 11 inch and 9 inch cannon. Also for sale were parts, some finished, but mostly in the rough, for what appears to be a pair of 9 inch Blakely cannon, including two 11½ foot long steel barrel cores, two steel jackets, two steel trunnions and thirteen steel rings, together weighing 28,000 pounds. 
450 pounder Blakely rifled coast gun 1864 One of two made by the Putnam Machine Company at Fitchburg for the Commonwealth of Massachussetts, acquired second-hand by Chili in 1866 Picture courtesy Gilles Galté Chilean Guns 1866 The Chileans were inspired by the import of 11 inch Blakely guns by Peru in defending their country against the Spanish fleet during 1865. In 1866 the Santiago government bought ten Blakely pieces; four 450 pounders and six 300 pounders. These were acquired second-hand from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at a cost, it was said, of $600,000 (equal to £120,000 if in gold dollars or £50,000 in “greenbacks”). They were supplied from Boston without carriages, which had to be manufactured in England. They were all to Blakely’s intermediate “Compound” design dating from 1863. One of the Massachusetts-made Chilean 450 pounders still exists at Valparaiso. It is marked on the right trunnion, in capitals, “Blakeley XI inch, N92, 43 300 lbs, 1864, PM Co Fitchburg”. The spelling of Blakely’s name adopted by the New Englanders may be noted.
In addition a mix of new pattern Blakely 300, 200, 100, 60 and 30 pounders were acquired and had been delivered to Valparaiso by July 1867. Chili “lent” Ecuador three 100 pounders and two 30 pounders to defend against Spain in 1866, delivered new from England by way of Panama.
One of the last orders received by the Blakely Ordnance Company in 1866 was for Chili, for the latest pattern of 11 inch steel guns. The order was fulfilled in 1867 by J Vavasseur & Company. 
7 inch Blakely cast-steel smooth-bore gun, No 386 of 1864 The “Un-Wise” investment by the US Navy “Un-Wise” – Blakely Gun No 386 On March 2, 1864 the United States Department of the Navy took delivery at Baltimore docks of a new 7 inch cast steel, banded cannon from Naylor, Vickers & Company, steel-masters of Sheffield, Yorkshire, England. It had been ordered personally by Assistant Secretary of the Navy and Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography, Captain Henry Augustus Wise USN, almost exactly a year earlier, to the most modern specification, the cost of the piece was to be £750 delivered at Liverpool. On “opening the box” the naval ordnance officers were struck in a heap. The piece was huge, far larger than anticipated, so large in fact that, although only 7 inches in calibre, it could not be accommodated on any of their warships. It was massively over-engineered, able to withstand any charge of powder that could be burst in its bore, so wide that it was thought impossible to aim properly. It “is entirely useless for any purpose for which it was intended to be put.” And it was smooth-bored, not even rifled.
It got worse, as Wise lamented: “it appears from the marks of the gun that it was made by the Blakely Ordnance Company, parties who are well-known to the Confederate Agents, and it was never the intention of the Bureau that any work for this government should be given to them.”
Was that the laughter of “the Confederate Agents” echoing across the Atlantic? Guns for Portugal 1865 The Portuguese government acquired four 5¼ inch Blakely rifled guns in 1865 for its Royal Navy. Their wooden screw-corvette, Duque de Palmela, 850 tons, built in Lisbon, was engined and outfitted in London during 1865 and armed with thirteen guns, twelve 32 pounder smooth-bores and a 56 pounder, 5¼ inch Blakely gun on an amidships pivot. The corvette was also provided with a 9 pounder Blakely field piece and a limber for land use by its Marines. The Portuguese steam gunboat Guadiana, 270 tons, was despatched to suppress the slave trade off Angola in September 1868, armed with a 40 pounder Blakely gun, and two smaller pieces. 
6 pounder Blakely mountain gun 1866 On a pack saddle, the carriage, wheels and ammunition boxes on other saddles This design was constant from 1861 until 1866 Picture courtesy Southwark Local History Library Guns for Paraguay 1865 It was reported that the Blakely Ordnance Company had received orders for field guns from the beleaguered state of Paraguay, then commencing a long and terrible war with its neighbours Brazil and Argentina. Examples of spherical steel shot made by Blakely’s works and Britten patent shells were noted by war reporters. Miscellaneous and Mysterious Guns On October 14, 1863, the Glasgow Herald, and other newspapers, reported that the steamer Chesapeake out from the Tyne, in the north of England, had landed arms for Circassia and Daghestan at Vardane in the Black Sea. In the cargo were, it was said, large Blakely guns to defend the port of Gelendzhik and several rifled mountain guns. The Chesapeake delivered nine rifled cannon, 30,000 “charges”, 150 revolvers and 3,400 Minié rifles to Circassian sandals, coastal work boats, to be landed ashore. These statelets in the Southern Caucasus were then in rebellion against the Imperial Russian government who acquired them by treaty from the Ottoman Turks. A Circassian delegation had visited Britain in 1862 and gained popular support in the north-east of the country. It is unlikely that Captain Blakely would wilfully undermine the ambitions of his largest customer for ordnance, although others may have bought and re-sold his guns. The rebellious Circassian territories were finally suppressed in May 1864.
On December 13, 1866 the Royal Navy, supported by the Metropolitan Police, seized a new 1,000 ton three-masted iron screw steamer in the Thames under the suspicion that it was “a Fenian privateer”, commissioned by the Irish terrorist group then annoying John Bull’s other island. On board were discovered several Blakely guns, thirty-two barrels of gunpowder, revolvers, rifles and bayonets.
After several days it was admitted that the vessel was acquired and outfitted for the United States of Colombia as one of three guard ships to protect their coast against smugglers and pirates, with the full authority of the British Foreign Office. The steamer, which had just been completed by Palmer & Company’s yard in Jarrow, was armed with two 40 pounder and two 20 pounder Blakely steel rifles.
A clue that the vessel may not have been Fenian but Colombian lay in her name, “Bolivar”. 
The range of calibres offer by the Blakely Ordnance Company in 1865, from 7 pounds to 600 pounds weight All have Blakely’s patent copper disc obturator at the base The Last Cannon 1865 In the last days of October 1865 the Blakely Ordnance Company delivered two 8½ inch calibre hammered cast-steel pieces, the barrel weighing 7 tons, firing 200 pound bolts, to the Royal Swedish Navy for use on a corvette. Spain, Portugal and Japan had ordered similar pieces in that year. The Company said that it had two years of orders to hand. Other late Blakely guns, for which details survive, include a 5.8 inch forged cast-steel muzzle-loading rifle, with a 97 inch long barrel, 82.5 inch length of bore, with a 10.875 inch diameter inner tube and an 18 inch maximum sleeve diameter. There was a common 8 inch cast-steel rifle, firing a 200 pound bolt. The barrel was 144 inches in overall length, weighing 17,000 pounds, with Blakely’s 12 groove ratchet rifling.
Blakely was then constructing at East Greenwich a new 13 inch cast-steel cannon to fire a 900 pound bolt, and a revolutionary 15 inch gun capable of projecting a bolt weighing 1,300 pounds... The stock of guns, shot and shell, and ordnance stores, that remained after the works closed in 1866 comprised: ● One 15 inch gun, weighing 17 tons 8 cwt, with Firth’s steel tube and jacket and cascabel, and wrought-iron trunnion, by the Lancefield Forge Company ● One 13 inch gun, weighing 12 tons 1 cwt, by the same makers ● One 11 inch gun, proved at Woolwich, Krupp’s steel tube and wrought-iron carriage, made by Rennie, total weight 33 tons ● One 11 inch Krupp’s steel gun, 14 tons, unfinished ● One 11 inch Low Moor iron gun, with steel jacket and hoops, proved at Woolwich, weighing 22 tons ● Four 11 inch Low Moor iron tubes, 23 tons, 14 cwt ● Three cast-iron jackets for same, 26 tons ● Two 11 inch steel jackets by Naylor, Vickers & Co., each 5 tons 16 cwt ● Six cast-iron trunnions for 11 inch guns, 32 tons 8 cwt ● 751 spherical steel shot by John Brown & Co., for 11 inch guns, 64 tons 10 cwt ● 82 turned cast-iron shot for 11 inch guns, 14 tons 11 cwt ● One 9 inch steel gun, proved at Woolwich, John Brown & Co., steel tube, weight 10 tons 6 cwt ● 31 steel and 49 cast-iron turned shot for same, 10 tons 6 cwt ● One 9 inch Krupp’s steel gun with iron jacket, built up by Fawcett, Preston & Co., 9 tons 5 cwt ● One 9 inch breech-loading gun, made by Krupp, exhibited in 1862 Exhibition, weight 8 tons, 5 cwt ● One 10½ inch wrought-iron [smooth-bored] gun, ‘Prince Alfred’, made by the Mersey Steel & Iron Company, Liverpool, weight 10 tons ● Three 9 inch rifled Low Moor guns, with steel rings, each weighing 12 tons 15 cwt ● Three rifled 9 inch Low Moor guns, with iron trunnions and cast-iron jackets each weighing 14 tons 6 cwt ● One 9 inch Firth’s steel gun, 5 tons 3 cwt ● Ten 9 inch Firth’s steel jackets for 9 inch guns, weighing 30 tons ● Eight Firth’s steel jackets for 9 inch guns, weighing 14 tons ● 447 spherical steel shot for 9 inch guns, made by John Brown & Co., 20 tons 16 cwt ● 199 rough steel shot, 12 tons, 13 cwt ● Two 8.6 inch steel guns, proved at Woolwich, John Brown & Co.’s steel tubes, steel jackets, and wrought-iron trunnions, one with carriage and pivot slide, made by Ferguson & Co. ● 41 cast-steel shot and shell for 8.6 inch guns ● One 8 inch Krupp’s steel gun, with wrought-iron trunnion and steel rings ● One 8 inch cast-iron gun with steel hoops, by Fawcett, Preston & Co., 5 tons 5 cwt ● Two Firth’s steel jackets, for 8 inch guns, 5 tons 18 cwt ● 22 pieces of steel for 8 inch shot, 2 tons 8 cwt ● One 7 inch Krupp’s steel breech-loading gun, exhibited at the Exhibition, 1862 ● One 7 inch cast-iron gun with steel hoops, 6 tons, made by Fawcett, Preston & Co. ● One 7 inch wrought-iron gun, 4 tons 13 cwt, made by Fawcett, Preston & Co. ● 240 cast-iron shot and shell for same, about 12 tons ● Four 6.4 inch cast-iron rifled guns, [with steel hoops] by Fawcett, Preston & Co., 4 tons each ● One cast-iron rifled gun with steel jacket ● Eight French cast-iron guns, 32 pounders, 3 tons each ● 16 cast-iron Congreve guns ● 8,611 cast-iron shells, French pattern, 246 tons, for 6.4 inch guns ● 334 6¼ inch cast-iron shells, 7 tons 13 cwt ● 90 cast-iron shot and shell ● Five [4.2 inch] 30, 36 and 40 pounder [cast-iron] guns, with steel hoops ● Six steel 18 pounder guns ● 2,043 shells for same ● Quantity of shot and shell for 18 and 20 pounder guns ● One 12 pounder steel gun, Mont Storm’s patent [breech-loader] ● One 12 pounder smooth-bore Whitworth gun ● One brass gun with yacht carriage ● One 9 pounder steel gun, finished for the 1862 Exhibition ● One 9 pounder cast-iron gun with steel jacket ● One steel breech loader ● One rifled steel gun ● Four 3 inch cast-iron guns, with steel rings ● 1,600 shot and shell for 9 pounders ● Two finished steel 6 pounder guns ● Two 2½ inch steel guns ● Three 2½ inch iron guns ● Four steel mountain guns ● 1,200 shot and shell for 6 pounder guns ● 12 rifled boat guns, with ammunition ● Four 6 pounder iron guns, on mule carriages ● One 1 pounder rifled gun, with Whitworth’s field carriage and limber ● 30 field gun carriages and limbers, broadside and mountain carriages ● 100 tons steel hoops, used in the construction of Blakely cannon ● 50,000 percussion fuses ● and a “highly-finished model of an 11 inch steel gun in a glass case” 
9 pounder Blakely steel mountain gun, This is patent gun number 477, now displayed at Fort Nelson, Portsmouth, made to Blakely’s “standard” design of field gun of 1861 Picture courtesy Steve Steenstrup (Click on the picture for more views, use Previous Page to resume) Proof Trials The following are summaries extracted from the Naval & Military Intelligence column in The Times newspaper of the proof firing (meant to be a test for safety) of Blakely guns. One has to compare the weight of the normal shot and that of the “proof cylinder” fired to see the extreme stress that the barrels were put under in proof. In addition, the normal maximum powder charge was doubled. Two rounds had to be fired for proof. All of the large guns of Blakely’s manufacture were proof-fired to this regime.
The impartial reporting of flaws indicates that these were not publicity pieces by Blakely. 1863 November 10: The first 11 inch, 400 pounder Blakely guns made by the Low Moor Ironworks for Russia were being sent to Woolwich for proof. They were to be tried with two rounds of 20 pound charges and 600 pound cylinders.
November 12: The four 11 inch Blakely guns for Russia had arrived by water on a barge at the ordnance wharf in Woolwich Arsenal. Each piece weighed 20 tons but the wharf crane, meant to cope with 24 tons, failed.
December 12: Four 11 inch, 400 pounder Blakely hammered cast-steel guns made at the Low Moor works for Russia were proved at Woolwich butts on consecutive days, with two rounds having 50 pound charges, wads and 600 pound iron cylinders. The fourth gun split a hoop at the breech. 1864 January 12: Three of the four 11 inch, 20 ton Blakely guns made at Low Moor and recently proved at Woolwich were shipped from the Victoria Docks on the Thames to St Petersburg. The fourth gun, with a rent in its breech jacket, was being repaired.
January 27: Two 9 inch, 300 pounder Blakely hammered cast-steel rifles were brought up to Woolwich proofing butts from Southwark “by a team of eighteen horses attached to one of Pickford’s heavy trucks”. One piece was proof-fired with 40 pounds of powder and a 340 pound cylinder, a small split occurred in the breech-hoop near the trunnions. The other gun was stuck in the mud of the road leading to the butts.
February 2: A 9 inch, 300 pounder Blakely hammered cast-steel gun was proof-fired but again split a hoop. Captain Blakely then insisted that the proof be repeated with an increased charge; this was done using 50 pounds of powder rather than 45, and the 450 pound iron cylinder. After the second proof no change was found in the state of the tube. The barrel was formed of four hoops of cast-steel each nearly four inches thick, the outer hoop was then regarded as superfluous.
February 4: A 9 inch, 300 pounder Blakely hammered cast-steel gun for Russia was proved at Woolwich under the supervision of Major P Bedingfield, the Army’s Assistant Inspector of Artillery, with Daniel Campbell for the Blakely Ordnance Company. The proof was 45 pounds of powder and a 340 pound iron cylinder. The gun weighed 12 tons, “The breech-piece absorbing nearly the whole of this huge mass of metal, is surrounded behind the trunnions by a ring of the same metal, three inches broad by three inches thick, and which from its position is destined to resist the whole force of this concussion”. This breech ring split, as did that of the gun in the previous week.
Similar, smaller guns were being made for Denmark.
August 14: An 11 inch, 400 pounder Blakely hammered cast-steel rifle was proved at Woolwich butts Its dimensions were 15 feet length, 43 inches diameter at breech, 20 inch diameter at muzzle. The proof was two rounds with a 52½ pound charge and a 540 pound iron proofing cylinder. The firing was supervised by Major Freeth, the Army’s Inspector of Ordnance and Captain Gordon CB, Superintendent of Military Stores at Woolwich. Daniel Campbell for the Blakely Ordnance Company was also present. The steel hoop that had split at a previous proof had been repaired and gun achieved its proof.
August 19: An 11 inch cast-iron Blakely gun was tried at Woolwich butts. This had been commissioned by the War Office as an “economy” version of the expensive cast-steel models, and would be accepted (and paid for) contingent on a proof-firing with 70 pound charges and a 400 pound cylinder. Josiah Vavasseur and Daniel Campbell of the Blakely company were present, and both said publically that the exercise was worthless and a cast-iron gun with such a proof would certainly burst. It did, into fifty fragments on the initial firing.
September 30: An 11 inch, 400 pounder Blakely steel gun for Peru was proved at Woolwich with a 45 pound charge and a 600 pound cylinder. The first cylinder fired damaged the earthworks of the butts when it struck an old shot, necessitating a delay whilst the butt was reconstructed. In the following day the proof was increased to 60 pounds of powder with the 600 pound cylinder “without injury”. Mr Kendall, the Peruvian consul, Colonel Bolognesi, the Peruvian Director of Artillery, and Captain Palliser, a British Army officer with an interest in artillery, were present, along with Captain Blakely, Josiah Vavasseur, Daniel Campbell and a Mr Wood from the Blakely Ordnance Company.
The report also mentioned the proof of a 7 inch, 100 pounder steel gun for the British Admiralty. This was tried with 31¼ pounds of powder and a 110 pound cylinder. The piece had 18 groove rifling and weighed 13,664 pounds. The 110 pound proof cylinder seems a poor test and may be a misprint.
October 15: Four 5¼ inch , 56 pounder Blakely rifled guns for Portugal were proved at Woolwich with 12 pound charges and 56 pound shot.
November 19: Once again the War Office tried cheap cast-iron for large ordnance, this time with a 6½ inch gun made by Blakely with French rifling of three deep elliptical grooves. It was intended from the outset to be tested to destruction, to demonstrate for once and for all time the “fallibility” of cast-iron when compared with Blakely’s expensive hammered cast-steel pieces. Supervised by Major Freeth for the War Office and Daniel Campbell for the Blakely company, the gun failed at the sixth round. It fired two rounds with 6¾ pounds of powder, two with 10 pounds and two with 13¼ pounds, all with a 65 pound iron cylinder having zinc studs to fill the rifling grooves. 
At Last! January 30, 1865 The test firing of a 7 inch Blakely gun for the British government at Shoeburyness, second from right, the only one acquired by the Royal Navy (Click on picture for enlarged view, use Previous Page to resume)
1865 January 18: An 11 inch, 400 pounder, 16 ton Blakely guns for Russia was transported from the Bear Lane factory in Southwark to Woolwich for proof, again “conveyed by one of Pickford’s trucks by a double team of sixteen horses”. The gun was of hammered cast-steel, with a steel tube, steel jacket and cast-iron trunnions. After its successful proof it was inspected by the Duke of Cambridge, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, who just happened to be visiting the Arsenal.
A 9 inch Blakely gun destined for Sweden was also proved with 45 pounds of powder and a 400 pound cylinder.
The continuous presence of British Army officers, over and above those one would expect at Woolwich Arsenal, at these trials, whether officially or unofficially, indicates that there was a constant interest in the ordnance being provided to countries abroad by Captain Blakely. 
Blakely and Krupp One of the most intriguing relationships is that between the Blakely Ordnance Company and the Gußstahlfabrik Friedrich Krupp of Essen in Prussia.
From being a small-scale maker of cutlery rollers and tools of fine cast-steel in the 1820s Krupp, under the management of the anglophile Alfred Krupp, had, by 1860, become a successful manufacturer of cast-steel railway axles and weldless steel tyres. But by then the Gußstahlfabrik Friedrich Krupp had other interests. From experimenting with cast-steel musket barrels in 1844, the firm had made a 3 pounder cast-steel gun in 1847 and showed a 6 pounder cast-steel gun at the Great Exhibition in 1851. As with Blakely the efforts of Krupp were entirely ignored. A 12 pounder cast-steel field gun was made in 1855. Krupp was determined and patented his cast-steel guns, sending samples to Austria, Belgium, France, the small German states and Russia. No one was able to burst his cast-steel cannon. Then, in May 1860, Prussia ordered 100 cast-steel 6 pounder smooth-bore field guns. Krupp was about to become the King of Cannon. The strength of the cast-steel pieces gave them twice the range of the bronze and iron competition. In the same year the firm introduced, against all Prussian military opinion, rifling and breech-loading. In 1866 Prussia ordered 500 Krupp breech-loading field guns, Russia followed suit. Even the War Office in London was impressed and found the barrels of Krupp cast-steel field guns indestructible in October 1862.
Blakely bought the Krupp guns that had been exhibited at the International Exhibition of 1862. He began to buy cast-steel components for his great guns from Krupp in 1863. He shared a common client in Russia. His patents for gun carriages featured Krupp pieces. A number of Krupp cast-steel breech-loading field guns were left at East Greenwich in 1866. Krupp’s own great guns were remarkably similar to Blakely’s.
Was Blakely making 11 inch and 9 inch steel muzzle-loading guns for Krupp, whose Essen works were working night and day producing field guns? Was Blakely angling to make Krupp breech-loaders for the War Office and his own Latin American clients? In any event the Gußstahlfabrik Friedrich Krupp had its own problems in 1866. Although the cast-steel barrels were undoubtedly strong, its breech-loading mechanism proved faulty in the war between Austria and Prussia. Krupp replaced every field gun with a new model without charge; the firm were in no position to assist Blakely in his financial difficulties.
The Blakely patent would expire in 1869. An alliance with Alfred Krupp might have secured the future.
El Cañon del Pueblo 11 inch Blakely gun, called the “People’s Cannon”, now fully-restored at Callao, Peru The Peruvian Navy fire it every May 2 to celebrate the victory over the Spanish fleet!
A Blakely gun in action! To see the “People’s Cannon” being fired once again on May 2, 2003 click the Start > symbol Video clip courtesy Admiral Reynaldo Pizarro
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