Pistol, pocket pistol

As was the case with other London trades, gunmaking tended to be passed down from father to son. Three generations of the Press family made guns in the area around the Tower of London which was the centre of the capital's firearms industry. A gunmaker called Edward Press had a workshop in the Minories in the late seventeenth century. His son Edward served his apprenticeship in the Minories before becoming a gunmaker to the Board of Ordnance. After being apprenticed to his father the third Edward Press worked as a gunsmith in Mile End and later Holborn.

Londoners carried pocket flintlock pistols like this one for personal protection. They could be easily concealed in a coat pocket and drawn quickly for use against highwaymen or street robbers. Pocket pistols of this type were usually sold in pairs. This one has a steel canon barrel with a walnut stock and a silver butt cap. It would have fired a bullet weighing at least half an ounce.