Treasures of history

George Wallace does some digging into his old 1902 Rigby rifle and discovers its storied 20th-century past

- George Wallace

For many years, I have had something of a love affair with what was originally Rigby’s Special Cordite .350 cartridge. It was loaded with a 310-grain bullet, either solid or soft-nosed, at 2,000 feet per second (fps) muzzle velocity. It was for years the most popular medium-bore rifle in Africa. Rigby offered bolt-action, single-shot and double rifles.

My first experience of it was over 20 years ago when I bought a Rigby bolt-action rifle. Although 100 years old, it handled like a dream and performed impressively on two African safaris, a wild boar hunt in France and deerstalking here in the UK. It had an interesting history and might have been handled by Theodore Roosevelt on his 1909/10 safari, but I eventually sold it to a friend and started looking for my true love in rifle design – a single-shot.

Exalted circles

Needles in haystacks and hen’s teeth soon began to seem like an easy option compared to finding a single-shot Rigby chambered for the .350, so eventually I gave up and settled for a double rifle, which was advertised by a dealer in the USA. I thought it was a nice old Rigby rifle until I began to research its history. At this point, it abruptly became much more interesting.

Rigby provided a certificate of authentication and a copy of its register for 13 November 1902. This told me that it had been sold to a Colonel J Leslie of 10 Great Cumberland Place, London. John Leslie, of Castle Leslie in Co Monaghan, Ireland, was heir to one of the largest estates in the country and would become the 2nd Baronet Leslie on the death of his father in 1916. Col Leslie’s wife, Leonie, was the sister of Lady Randolph Churchill, making her Winston Churchill’s aunt.