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HISTORIES OF BRISTOL COMPANIES

Photograph Above: Veals Tower Hill gunsmith's shop, demolished in the 'fifties road building programme pictured circa 1930.

A gunsmith in the city was Samuel Veals, who began his gun-making and gunsmith’s business in Tower Hill in 1846. The family stayed there for 130 years, until the business moved, because of redevelopment, to its present home in Bristol's Old Market area.

The early business was a cutler’s as well, and in the basement of the Tower Hill shop (where once, during a building project, a stone tomb, a Bristol farthing and an 18th century sundial were found) there was knife-grinding and sharpening equipment. When the Victorian owners of the new villas in Redland and Cotham needed their spacious lawns cared for, they bought lawn-mowers, and then took them to Veals to be repaired and sharpened; thus a new kind of business grew up.

Until the Second World War, Veals sold guns and lawn-mowers and repaired both, as well as sharpening scissors and cut-throat razors. But when a member of the fourth generation of the family, Sev Veals, came back from the war, he announced that he never wanted to see another gun in his life, and his father’s friend, MP Ernie Bevin suggested that Veals should start stocking fishing-tackle instead. They started with a few cartons and from this grew into the largest fishing-tackle firm in the region.

The lawn-mower side of the business went to Easton, but closed in 1970, and the guns disappeared after the last war. Five generations of the Veals family have now worked in the firm.

As well as socialising, a major interest for Victorian men was sport, and in particular, shooting. Between 1782 and 1850, there were some 50 gunsmiths and gun-sellers trading in Bristol, but only one of them has survived, George Gibbs of Perry Road. The firm was founded, probably in 1830, by James and George Gibbs, in Redciffe Street, then moved to Thomas Street, Corn Street and Clare Street later in the century.

Many of Bristol’s gun firms dealt in the export market to the colonies, and George Gibbs supplied rifles for big game hunting in the 1860s; they were famous for designing the Farquaharson Metford .505 big game rifle which was exported all over the world, even as far as Russia and Japan, as well as Africa and India.

This enonnously successful rifle elicited the following testimonial, one to make today’s conservationists blench.

“On the 5th of this month while on safari, I was called at 5.30 a.m. as a native informed me that elephant were raiding his intame garden, so I rushed out, picked up the .505, and in half an hour came to a herd of seven elephants in the long grass just clear of the village. I got up to within 12 yards of them and dropped two, the rest made off and I followed, and owing to there being natives around, did not go far, and in a few minutes I came up to them again and dropped four more; only one was left and he returned to the first two, and I shot him at 6—7 yards. I think this is the finest christening any rifle ever had. Seven elephant before breakfast!”

This heartless account was written in Kenya in the 1920s. Not surprisingly, George Gibbs, son of the founder, was a crack shot who represented England and who once scored 57 consecutive bullseyes in front of King Edward VII in 1909. His father and uncle had both joined the Bristol Rifle Volunteers when they were re-formed in 1859 (Bristol’s 1798 Volunteers were the first in the country), and a craze for rifle drill and shooting-ranges resulted; when the Drill Hall was built at the top of Park Street in 1861, there were 1,000 members in 10 companies, and the firm of George Gibbs had the contract to supply them, since he was an expert designer and manufacturer of guns and maker of ammunition.

His son George became Colonel of one of the Volunteer Corps, and he would, as a birthday treat, let his little daughter head the parade on a big horse. The Colonel, a keen sportsman, started the Clifton Beagles, and was a friend of W.G. Grace. He once became the talk of the town for shooting down an effigy of a parliamentary candidate, hung by pranksters from the Suspension Bridge.

2008 victim to the showcase bus route

Fishing tackle shop Veals is moving out of its Bristol home of more than 30 years because a new traffic system has hit sales. The Old Market business has fallen victim to the showcase bus route, which means customers can no longer park outside.Veals, which has been in Bristol for more than 160 years, is now vacating its premises and moving around the corner into Gardiner Haskins on Broad Plain.

Jeremy Salisbury, who owns Veals, said: "People used to be able to just pull up outside and nip in for whatever they needed. "But the city council changed everything when they brought in the new showcase bus route. "Unfortunately it means that although Old Market is one of the widest streets in the country, there are now just a couple of lanes of

Atlanta Scavenger Hunt #8, Wild Card! #9 "Photographs with Stories"

It's that time of year again, the middle of May. It used to be the end of April, but the weather was so bad, the powers that be changed the dates in hopes of warmer temperatures and less rain.

It worked, some.... You see it always rains at Dayton.

Yep. It's time for the Dayton Hamvention. Think Daytona Bike Week, except there are no motorcycles, no biker babes flashign their "headlights", etc. And everybody is fat, or old, or both. And has a radio. Some folks have multiple radios, on themselves, on their cars. As one woman told me one time " radios strapped all over their bodies...".

Yep. At the Dayton Hamvention everybody has a radio or two (or three), and the antennae to go with them. Everthing Ham radio. New equipment vendors 9Kenwood, ICOM, Yaesu, TenTec, M2, etc.) set-up big booths in Hara Arena and show their new products. The big vendors five away gree hats. Let's see, 12 years, yep, I've got 12 different colors of Yaesu hats. Other related vendors sell everything from power supplies to computers to salted nuts. Yep.

The outside parking area of the arena is a huge fleamarket. Huge. Think of any given Braves home game, except everybody is a Ham Radio operator with a pickup truck or statonwagon with the tailgate down and stuff to sell. Good stuff. We call it the "boneyard", and "if you can't find it at Dayton, you can't find it.

We usually leave Atlanta 6:00am in the morning. We drive for 8 hours, it's an easy drive. Just take I-75 North, then turn left when you get to Dayton. We pass the time by using our various radios to talk back and forth to each other in our group, and to other Hams, some of them all around the World.

We have a real good time.

We do the Dayton Hamvention Thursday, Friday and Saturday. There is a lot to see, you understand. Think Comdex, but for total geeks, real geeks. We seek out and buy bargains. We usually hit it for an hour or two Sunday morning, then depart, and make the 8 hour drive back to Atlanta. Note, the dirve back is always easier because it is, in fact, all "downhill". LOL.

When we return, most of us have some odd piece of junk we know full well we'll never use, never turn into that sweet 100 Watt CW transmitter, just by snipping a wire here and adding an obscure capacitor there. Junk for our junk piles.

But we do have fun....

Think Dayton!

TTY soon es 73 de KE4ENI..
(JG/HamWithCam)