Westley, wrote his successor, “looked you through and through and seemed to see less without than within … an expression severe, defiant, almost forbidding … the whole attitude one of compression and power … armed to grapple with obstacles and to overcome them.”
His father, William Westley Richards, was less intimidating. Born to an old Birmingham family in 1789, he followed a forebear into gun-making and by 1812 had committed to build “as good a gun as can be made.” A man of many interests, William became a civic leader. He was also an avid sportsman and rode to the hounds. He gave generously to charity, and when at his shop a worker floundered under an oppressive mortgage, William secured the deed and gave it to the man.
His inventive mind led to several patents, his first on gun locks in 1821. He was ever testing fresh ideas. One day under leaking skies he opened a collapsible umbrella. When onlookers laughed, he drew it closed. The subsequent shower soaked him, perhaps bringing to mind Disraeli’s observation that in a free country everyone is allowed mimic his neighbors.
In 1813 William and his father established the Birmingham Proof House for the arms industry. At
No. 82 High Street, William Westley Richards’ shop was distanced from those of other Birmingham gun-makers. Its practices differed too, aligning more with London’s. Most operations were finished in-house, not farmed out to specialists. Instead of building rifles of common
