Some Ketland figures

[JV Puleo]

Three years ago I suspended my work on the Ketlands because I had to visit the National Archives regional office in Philadelphia and it closed. I've finally been able to resume work and spend two days there on my way back from the Baltimore show looking at shipping manifests. Although there is much more...to much for an internet posting, I thought the members here would be interested in some figures reflecting just how big the Ketland business was.

Between the beginning of 1794 and the end of 1796, effectively 3 years, Ketland & Co (aka Ketland & Walker) sent to America...

7,097 fowlers, 3,299 pair of pistols, and 830 dozen gun locks...or 7,097 fowlers, 6,598 pistols and 9,960 locks! There is, of course much more and this trade went on until at least the War of 1812. These figures do not include guns supplied to other merchants trading with America. I know of at least one and can document their purchases but there is no reason to believe they were the only one. By no means did all of these go through the K brothers in Philadelphia who were functioning as general merchants, not gunmakers.

I'm still sorting through and organizing this new information but the scale they operated on is clearly staggering and goes a long way to explaining why we see their name so often.

[Pukka Bundook]

The amount they supplied is rather mind boggling Joe!
Thank you for this info.

All the best,
Richard.

[Steve Collward]

Joe,
  Thanks for sharing this information.  The numbers of fowlers, pistols and locks are amazing. 
Best of luck in your on-going Ketland research. Many of us look forward to its completion, as no doubt, you are.

[JV Puleo]

This is only the tip of the iceberg...
It's proving a struggle to get back into "K" mode. When you have to step back from a project for years just remembering where you left off is difficult. On the plus side, I've made several very good discoveries in the past two or three years...including real proof that the Ketland & Walker partnership was formed in 1776.

These export figures testify to the huge amount of capital that the K's had to have behind them. Remember, they had to buy all those guns and ship them to America...then wait 6 months to a year before the money started coming back. There was no credit on the buying end because all of these guns were produced by smallworkers in the B'ham trade and they simply didn't have the option of waiting to be paid.

In order to get an export license K&W had to post a bond of 6 times the value of the cargo so this was a market that could only be accessed on a large scale.

Unfortunately, the manifests do not describe what is being shipped. They will read something like "37 cases consigned to X". They also do not follow a prescribed format so, while all of them list the consignee, some do not list the consignor so there are shipments where we know what was on  board the ship but can't tell from the manifest who collected it. However, that proves the the K brothers were only one of the customers of K&W.

Also, most of the manifests have not survived. The only port where they are relatively complete is Philadelphia. As far as I've been able to tell, nothing has survived from Boston, New York, Baltimore or Norfolk. There may be some from Savannah and Charlotte but I doubt it's worth a trip to the Atlanta NA office to see.

[backsplash75]

Three years ago I suspended my work on the Ketlands because I had to visit the National Archives regional office in Philadelphia and it closed. I've finally been able to resume work and spend two days there on my way back from the Baltimore show looking at shipping manifests. Although there is much more...to much for an internet posting, I thought the members here would be interested in some figures reflecting just how big the Ketland business was.

Between the beginning of 1794 and the end of 1796, effectively 3 years, Ketland & Co (aka Ketland & Walker) sent to America...

7,097 fowlers, 3,299 pair of pistols, and 830 dozen gun locks...or 7,097 fowlers, 6,598 pistols and 9,960 locks! There is, of course much more and this trade went on until at least the War of 1812. These figures do not include guns supplied to other merchants trading with America. I know of at least one and can document their purchases but there is no reason to believe they were the only one. By no means did all of these go through the K brothers in Philadelphia who were functioning as general merchants, not gunmakers.

I'm still sorting through and organizing this new information but the scale they operated on is clearly staggering and goes a long way to explaining why we see their name so often.

great stuff, those are healthy numbers especially when you consider the total U.S. Resident Population in 1790 was about 3,929,214, if my math is correct that would be one fowler for every 280 males in America at that time. 

[spgordon]

Wow, this is amazing information--and doubly amazing because its reliable information. Thanks so much.

So you mention that the Ketland brothers in Philadelphia are only one of the customers of K&W, who are shipping all this stuff from Britain. And you mention that, in some cases, the persons or company to which the materials are sent is not known.

In how many case is the purchaser known? Just in a few--or in a lot of instances? (I understand that in some or many cases, the entity that picked up the shipment might not be its final destination.)

I guess I'm asking if there are many known Philadelphia merchants on the list?

[smylee grouch]

Thank you for your efforts on this research. It is interesting to me and as others have noted some what mind boggling.

[JV Puleo]

I am going to try to identify as many of the recipients of the K&W shipments as possible but I've only just started on that. I was able to find these shipments because I know what ships they were licensed to travel on and the Captain's name in most cases from the Privy Council licenses. Newspaper advertisements of the period often include the name of the ship so I ought to be able to cross reference the ships with merchants advertising guns even if they don't mention the Ketlands. It isn't perfect, but it's better than just guessing.

Here is an example of a shipment to Thomas & John Ketland...




instagram photo hd

As to the per capita distribution, remember this is only the first three years. The later numbers are higher and, for the most part, I only have reliable numbers up to about 1805. K&W ceased getting licenses in their own name about 1799 and gave the business to James Ketland, another brother established as a commission merchant in London. It looks as if he only handled the business up to 1808 and very likely not all of it. It's only because he has the same last name that I was able to locate the licenses. If K&W went through other commission merchants I do not know who they were. There were a lot of other licenses to export military stores but virtually all are in the name of London commission agents who handled any commodity for a small percentage of the value. In any case, the goal here is to demonstrate the scale of the business...identifying any particular gun or even most of the shipments is impossible from the surviving documents.

For instance, the United States government bought two lots of muskets in England in 1799 (2,500 & 3,500) but the license is in the name of the bankers, F&W Baring. These were commercial India Pattern muskets (with 39-inch barrels). Some of these were used to arm the US Marines during the War of 1812 because the commandant of the Marine Corps felt the shorter barrels were more convenient to handle aboard ship.

[JV Puleo]

I guess I'm asking if there are many known Philadelphia merchants on the list?

Simple answer...Yes. Thus far the only one that is a slam-dunk attribution is Simon Walker who advertised guns and was the son of one of Thomas Ketland Sr.'s partners. He was also a business colleague of the K brothers...

Also, I think it is fair to assume that all the shipments that went to ports other than Philadelphia were sent to other merchants. It will be time consuming to identify those but I think we can get most of them. I do think we can bury the old collector notion that the Ketland brothers in Philadelphia were gunmakers or that there are any "American Made" K guns.

[Jim Kibler]

As a modern day gun and lock manufacturer, I can appreciate those numbers.  Makes me do the math to figure how much labor we would need to produce at this rate with all of our modern equipment.

Jim

[smart dog]

Hi,
This was just the Ketlands.  Then there were the Wilsons (London), Galtons, and others.  During the 1770s and 1780s there were about 20,000 tradesmen and women working in Birmingham and the adjacent suburbs, 4,000 worked in the gun trades.

dave 

[JV Puleo]

By the time the Ketlands entered the export trade I believe the Wilson's were already out of it, at least as far as the US. It's not my area of interest but I seem to remember they did supply trade goods in Canada. Interestingly, I have found only one K&W shipment to Canada and that was very early on. In any case, I didn't find any export licenses in their name although that isn't proof that they didn't participate. It is much the same with Galtons. The Galton's primary customers had been the Ordnance Office and the Royal Africa Company but by the 1790s Samuel Tertius Galton, the last of the gunmakers, was moving away from the business, using his considerable wealth to found a bank It looks to me as if Ketland & Walker saw an opportunity to move into the market largely vacated by the major players when the Privy Council embargo went into effect in 1774. But, you are correct in saying that there were others...actually quite a few but with one exception they all used London commission agents to handle their transactions.

If I live long enough and have the time (and money) I'd like to document all the shipments to America from 1756 when the licensing law went into effect to the peace that ended the War of 1812...which granted the United States "most favored nation" rights. It's my plan to start this later this summer when I go to Britain but how far I will get is a question. I doubt I can afford to stay in London for a two or three weeks photographing the records...but it would be a worthwhile undertaking.

[spgordon]

It's my plan to start this later this summer when I go to Britain but how far I will get is a question. I doubt I can afford to stay in London for a two or three weeks photographing the records...but it would be a worthwhile undertaking.

One option would be to ask the institution that holds the records to digitize them--or even to hire somebody, perhaps a graduate student at a London university, to do this work for you, if you can specify precisely what you want photographed. It sounds extravagant, I know, but paying somebody a reasonable hourly wage to photograph things might be quite inexpensive compared to the cost of a trip to London (plane, food, hotel, etc.) or even extra days there. I needed some things photographed at the Burton Collection in Detroit a decade or so ago, and a graduate student helped me out--at a tiny fraction of what the cost would have been to travel to Detroit myself. Again, this option requires you to know what you want to photograph and where it is. If you still need to poke around to find out what needs to be photographed or where it is ... best to do that yourself!

[JV Puleo]

The material I want is in huge bound volumes...126 of them. I've had very little luck photographing the pages as the books themselves are so big that you would have to supply a special frame to hold the camera. The British NA have camera stands available but they aren't big enough. Then there is the problem that you would have to go through the volumes one at the time, one page at a time looking for the entries so it could easily take all day to do 10 volumes even it you just photographed the entries and didn't stop to look at them.

But, you've given me an idea...I'll write to the archives and discuss the problem with them. I've found archivists to be extremely helpful in the past so perhaps they will be intrigued by the problem and willing to help. They may well have another piece of equipment available that isn't generally used by the public.