Cool Gun with a very neat story

Sam06 · January 13, 2021 14:08

Rare & ID'd Webley Fosbery Model 1903 .455 Automatic Revolver - Curios & Relics at GunBroker.com : 888428717
Buy Rare & ID'd Webley Fosbery Model 1903 .455 Automatic Revolver: GunBroker is the largest seller of Curios & Relics Collectible Firearms All: 888428717

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This revolver was the personal sidearm of Captain Charles Beresford Tennent, Royal Artillery. British officers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were responsible for purchasing all of their own kit, uniforms and sidearms. Tennent probably purchased this Webley Fosbery shortly after he was commissioned and undoubtedly used it as his personal sidearm during his military service.

Tennent was born November 15, 1889, in Essex. Tennent attended Dover College and was a Lord Warden’s Scholar in 1909, and was admitted to the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich the same year. He passed out of Woolwich and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery on July 23, 2010. Tennent served in several garrison artillery assignments and was promoted to first lieutenant on July 23, 1913. During this period he was assigned to Number 75 Company, Royal Garrison Artillery, stationed in Bombay and, later, in Rangoon.

As the buildup began for the attack on Gallipoli, Lieutenant Tennent was seconded for service in the Indian Mountain Artillery in early April 18, 1915. As part of the Indian Mountain Artillery, Tennent was assigned to the 31st Mountain Battery.

Lieutenant Tennent joined the Indian Mountain Artillery while they were already embarked at Alexandria in Egypt. The Mountain Artillery Brigade, embarked with fifty-six mules in each battery and the officers in the battery landed with the leading infantry units at 3:15 am on April 25, 1915. Unfortunately, both the infantry and their accompanying mountain artillery units were landed at the wrong beach and, creating further problems, units were landed interspersed so that units were all mixed up on the landing beaches. One battery, the 6th, rushed to support some infantry units engaged with Turkish troops and received so many casualties that it was withdrawn less than 12 hours later.

Despite having been put ashore at the wrong location, the infantry and the artillery dug in amidst heavy fire from Turkish soldiers and were only able to maintain their beachhead due to the presence and support of Royal Navy ships firing in support. All of the mountain artillery batteries were distributed amongst the infantry of the Australia and New Zealand Corps in sections or singly. The Mountain Artillery Brigade stayed on the peninsula at Gallipoli until the evacuation was finally ordered and carried out on December 18-19, 1915.

The unit refit in Egypt and was back fighting the Turks in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) in late 1916. Tennent fought throughout the Mesopotamia Campaign from 1916 until the war’s end. Tennent and the 31st Mountain Artillery Battery arrived in what is now Iraq around the same time that Major General Charles Townshend surrendered his forces at Kut on April 29, 1916. After this humiliating defeat, Townshend was relieved and replaced by Lieutenant General Sir Frederick S. Maude. Maude spent the next six months building up supplies and lines of communications and supply around Basra and training his troops. Taking advantage of Ottoman weakness, Maude launched an offensive on December 13, 1916, in which Tennent played a part with his battery.

British forces advanced up both sides of the Tigris River and recaptured Kut in February 1917. The British, and then Captain Tennent, continued to advance north, either bypassing or fighting and displacing Ottoman forces until March 11, 1917, when they captured Baghdad. General Maude stopped to refit in Baghdad, but died of cholera on November 18, 1917. Maude was replaced by General William Marshall who then ordered a halt to all further operations for the winter.

The British, and Captain Tennent, resumed offensive operations in late February 1918, capturing Hit, Khan al Baghdadi and Kifri in March and April. British forces then put down an uprising in Najaf until the rebels surrendered in May 1918. While the bulk of active British forces moved west to the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in support of the Battle of Megiddo, Tennent and his mountain artillery battery moved east as part of General Lionel Dunsterville’s operations in Persia in the summer of 1918. Operations in Persia were not prosecuted because of the climate and Tennent and his battery moved back to southern Iraq just prior to the Armistice.

At war’s end, Tennent was on the Karun Front between Basra and Ahwaz. Tennent left the army shortly after the war ended and moved to Kenya where he lived for many years. During his time in Kenya, then a colony of Great Britain, Tennent was a farmer and also served as a Justice of the Peace for the Kisumu-Londiani District. Captain Tennent eventually returned to Britain and died on January 6, 1973 in Cheltenham. He was buried in Gloucestershire.

This is a very rare and historically significant Webley Fosbery “automatic” revolver, one of only about 4,200 ever made, and it was the personal sidearm of Captain Charles Beresford Tennent, Royal Artillery, who served in the Great War as an artillery officer in the Indian Mountain Artillery in the middle east. This revolver still functions perfectly.

This revolver is C&R eligible. This revolver will also come with an historic writeup and a CD containing all of the photos in the listing. I accept Visa and MasterCard and charge NO FEES. Please let me know if you have any questions or if you would like additional photos posted.

Cool Gun with a very neat story

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