The Witbul Webley
A Boer War revolver saved by a 14-year-old girl
IT IS EXCEPTIONALLY rare to find a collectible firearm with as tory that can be verified. We seldom know what tales of adventure, heroism, bloodied battles or perhaps even criminal intrigues old firearms might tell if they could. So, when I was given the telephone number of a person who wanted to sell an old handgun, I had no idea where it would lead me.
The name Webley was mentioned, which made me sit upright. I immediately phoned the seller. He explained with a sad voice that, having retired, he was scaling down and had decided to sell the revolver. I asked for photos and we discussed a price based on past auction results. After a few phone calls, we reached agreement and I bought the Webley, a Mark III. As it was a commercial version, without any military markings, I did not give much thought to its origin, but a few days later when the licence application paperwork arrived, I noticed it had a rather low serial number. I phoned the seller to ask if he knew anything about the history of the gun. “Yes of course,” he said, “The Webley belonged to my great-grandfather, Jan Leonard, who got it from General Christiaan de Wet during the Boer War…”.
THE WEBLEY COMPANY can be traced back to the mid1830s when Philip Webley and his brother James, set up business in Birmingham, England. Around 1853, they began producing their first patented single-action cap-and-ball revolvers. Some years later, Philip’s two sons, William and Henry, joined the firm and it became known as P. Webley & Sons. By then they were manufacturing their own .44-calibre rim-fire solid-frame revolver as well as licensed copies of Smith & Wesson break-action revolvers. During the late 1860s, one of
their proprietary solid-frame, centrefire, rod-ejecting revolvers was adopted by the Royal Irish Constabulary. The “RIC” revolver, as it became known, was adopted by several armed units, including the South African Cape Mounted Police.
The first top-break, hinged-frame, self-ejecting revolvers for which the Webley name became world famous, were the Webley-pryse (more correctly the No 4) in 1877, the Webley-kaufman in 1881, and the Webley-government (WG) model in 1885. These revolvers were favoured by British military officers who purchased them privately and used them in countless British colonial wars where they made a good name for themselves.
IN 1887, WHEN the British Army was searching for a new official sidearm, Webley submitted a .455-calibre, six-shot, hinged frame, self-extracting, double-action revolver with a four-inch barrel for trials. The Joint War Office and Admiralty Committee tasked with the selection process was suitably impressed and the revolver was adopted in November of the same year as the “Pistol, Webley, Mark I”. During the following years the revolver went through a number of minor improvements and, by 1899, the Mark IV or “Boer War model” was in use.
Like most private British arms manufacturers, Webley also sold their firearms on the commercial market and abroad, including to the two Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State. By the mid-1890s TW Webley regularly visited the republics, and the Transvaal had bought a couple of batches of revolvers for their artillery, police, prisons and volunteer units. In December 1895, a further 500 revolvers were ordered and, in a letter dated 20 December 1895, Webley mentioned that they had made some improvements to their design, the Mark III having been introduced in October 1895.
In the wake of the Jameson Raid in late 1895, this order was hastily increased to 1 000 revolvers. In June 1896, TW Webley was back in the Transvaal and, after a meeting with General Piet Joubert, an order was placed for 5 000 additional Mark III revolvers complete with holsters, belts, pouches and cleaning rods. The order was shipped in batches from Britain to Pretoria between October 1896 and February 1898.
Unfortunately, as far as we know, the serial numbers of these Mark IIIS were not documented, but after some excellent detective work by Dr Ron Bester, it is possible to narrow down the field. It is certain that Webley revolvers imported by the Transvaal would have been commercial examples without any British War Department “broad arrow” acceptance markings. One very useful clue Dr Bester found was the serial number of a sample Mark III Webley revolver submitted to the Orange Free State in August 1896. Its number was recorded as 1009. Thus it is quite likely that the first batch of Mk III revolvers had serial numbers between 1 to 1008, and the second batch of 5 000 had numbers higher than 1009. This is strongly supported by the fact that quite a few Mark IIIS with no military markings and with serial numbers in the 2000 to 4000 range are today found in collections in South Africa. My new purchase fell smack in the middle of this batch.
Jan Daniel ‘Witbul’ (White Bull) Leonard was born on 6 May 1854, from Irish-boer stock. He married Anna Catharina Sophia Oosthuizen and by 1899, had six children, their oldest a daughter called Annie (later Wentzel). Jan was a wellknown burgher of the Orange Free State and quite wealthy from selling the lime mining rights on his farm Witlaagte at Whites near the present-day town of Virginia.
According to family recollection, General Christiaan de Wet personally gave Jan the Webley revolver, but the date of this occurrence could not be verified
THE ORANGE FREE STATE, situated between the British Cape Colony and the Transvaal, did everything in its power to prevent conflict between its neighbours but, when war became inevitable, the Free State government decided to honour their treaties with the Transvaal and sided with their sister republic. In September 1899, the Free State burghers were called to arms; their saddle bags were packed with supplies and their Mauser and Martini-henry rifles held ready.
Jan joined the Winburg Commando and would have seen action on the upper Tugela areas of the Natal Front. However, by February 1900, the initially successful republican war effort had ground to a halt and British superiority in numbers and arms started to tell. General Piet Cronje was caught unawares at his position at Magersfontein and Kimberley was
relieved behind him, forcing him to flee towards Bloemfontein. However, before he could cross the Modder River, the pursuing British army caught up with him and he was surrounded near Paardeberg on 17 February.
General Christiaan de Wet immediately launched a counter attack and captured the British positions at Oskoppies (Kitchener’s Kop) east of Cronje’s laager. Under great pressure, he held this position for a couple of days in the hope that Cronje would abandon his wagons and escape to the east, but on 21 February, De Wet’s forces were again driven from their position. Things started looking dire for Cronje’s laager.
In the meantime the Winburg Commando had been withdrawn from the Natal Front on 14 February and rushed to the Kimberley area in order to assist. With these new re-enforcements De Wet attempted to recapture the Oskoppies on 23 February. The task was entrusted to General Philip Botha with a number of commandants under him, including Harry Theunissen of Winburg with a force of some 500 men, mostly from the Winburg and Heidelberg commandos. Unfortunately it was a poorly executed assault and the majority of the attacking Boers were forced to withdraw. Commandant Theunissen, together with 87 Winburgers, heroically held their ground until their comrades reached safety, but after two or three hours they were forced to surrender to the British. Jan Leonard must have been one of these men, as he was recorded in British Prisoner of War (POW) records as no. 5825, aged 46, farm Witlaagte, Winburg, captured at Koedoesrand on 23 February 1900. After his capture Jan was shipped to Broadbottom POW camp, at St Helena, on the SS Bavarian where he spent the rest of the war.
ACCORDING TO FAMILY recollection, Christiaan de Wet personally gave Jan the Webley revolver, but the date of this occurrence could not be verified. Given that Jan was with De Wet on the Western Front for only a few days before he was