Field Gun Shell

[Barry Hayter]

Hi,

I have been researching my Great Grandfather Lt Col John Henry Langton DSO and with the kind help of Forum poster Jon Saunders gathered a wealth of information. I am now starting to look through the 'artefacts' which have remained in the family including his medals (full size, miniture and material), telegram, shoe polish kit and a field gun shell which he crudely engraved. I plan to take clearer photographs for Jon in the near future but attach the below in the hope somebody can tell me more about the gun from which it was fired. I don't even know if the top and bottom half belong to each other or if it was fired AT the British or By the British!!!

I know from the generous detail Jon sent to me that John Langton served for 7 years in SA during the Boer Wars, the shell is engraved with Boer War 1900 JHL on the front and 4th Field Troop RE on the back. I assume he was serving at the time though have also read that shortages in ammunition led the army to request all shells be returned for reuse so perhaps he should not have kept this!

I appreciate this is a site geared towards WW1 but I am not sure which era this shell is from .... whilst it is engraved 1900 I have no way of telling if this is a reflection of the date it was in use. To my knowledge 1900 was not a specifically important date in the Boer War (correct me if I'm wrong ... more than possible!) so I suppose it could simply be a New Year \ Century memento!

I have seen other posts on here about Field Gun shells and they seem to have a lot of markings on them which help identify where it was manufactured etc ... unfortunately this only has letters on the top section (the business end) with "p a" on the top and "v" on the underside ... no idea what that means.

Anyway, any info on the shell type would be gratefully received.

[TonyE]

It looks like a 1 pdr. Maxim pom-pom round, used by both sides in the Boer War, loaded with Common Shell.

It is probably a Boer shell if it does not have any of the normal British markings, broad arrow etc. The V could possibly be Vickers, but unlikely, as the normal logo at that time was VS&M for Vickers Sons and Maxim.

If you can post better pictures of the markings it would help.

Regards

TonyE

[Barry Hayter]

Tony ... many thanks for your comments ... really interesting and I'll research more into that.

Shall obtain better clarity photographs over the weekend and update the post shortly.

Thanks again and Happy New Year.