Original British 1708 Dated Queen Anne Brass Barrel Naval Flintlock Blunderbuss by Thomas Green dated 1708

Original Item: Only One Available. This is a rare very early example of a British brass-barreled Blunderbuss, as used in the Royal Navy of the 18th Century. The lock is maker marked T. / GREEN / 08 on the tail of the lock, indicating production in 1708 by maker Thomas Green. It is additionally marked GREEN on the top of the brass barrel, and it turns out that this maker had a rather interesting history, and influential place in the trade at the time. Thomas Green worked in an area close to the Tower of London known as Minories, but originally came from the small northern market town of Kirkby Stephen in Westmorland. He was apprenticed to Edward Nicholson in 1686 and was admitted as a freeman of the London Gunmakers' Company in 1693. After this he began his gunmaking business in the Minories, which was relatively close to the Tower of London. He was made a Gunmaker to Ordnance between 1697-1715, and was appointed Viewer and Proofmaster to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1715. In 1720 Green