James Paris Lee was born in Scotland and came to Canada in 1836, when he was 5 years old. He did all of his early gunsmithing and development in Ontario, then moved to the US in 1858 (Lee was 27).
After a couple of abortive efforts, he invented the entire concept of a box magazine beneath the action of a bolt rifle. Mauser and Mannlicher both developed their magazines from Lee's. He then turned to designing a very fast turnbolt rifle using this magazine, founded a company and got some financial backing. He contracted with the Sharps company to actually build his rifles, but Sharps' went bankrupt with the job only half completed. Remington had bought a lot of the Sharps equipment AND the existing parts for the Lee rifles. They offered Lee a job as a salesman, in return for which they would complete his rifles. This was the 1879 Remington-Lee rifle. It was adopted by the US Navy in .45-70 and by China in .43-77. Lee was Remington's representative in China and sold immense numbers of Remington Rolling Blocks to the Celestial Empire as well as some of his own rifles. Asked how he did it, for no-one else could get an order out of China, Lee quipped that, "With a name like Jimmie Lee, they probably think I'm related!". The fact was that Lee got along well with the Chinese simply by treating them as his equals. Works every time.
But THREE of those 1879 Lee Rifles were bought by the British Army and were sent to ENFIELD for evaluation. They passed an excellent test and Enfield saw the vast potential of this Scots/Canadian/American rifle. Remington also was working on improving the basic Lee Rifle and brought out an improved model as the Model 1885. Enfield bought a few of those, also. The Lee rifle was fitted with a barrel designed by Sir William Metford, produced as a Trials rifle and finally was adopted as the Lee-Metford Rifle Mark I in 1888. It took the vastly-improved new .303 cartridge, the experimental .402 having been overturned by the development of smokeless powders. The new rifles used black-powder ammunition for 4 years only, then Cordite ammunition was adopted in 1892.
It was found that the very hot Cordite wore the Metford barrels excessively, so, following more Enfield developments, a modified (Metford-designed) rifling was adopted in 1895 and the rifle became known as the Lee-Enfield. The Short rifle, the Rifle, Short, Magazine Lee-Enfield or S-MLE in its proper form, made its debut in 1902 and was adopted in its Mark III version in January of 1907. This rifle was the backbone of the British Army during two World Wars, served again in Korea, was produced in Australia into the 1950s and in India into the late 1960s and currently still is being made in the form of spare parts (every part except for the Body) in India and Pakistan both.
The Number 4 Rifle is a Lee rifle redesigned for modern manufacturing processes, with a heavy barrel. It has been produced since 1931.
James Paris Lee died in 1904.
He has never received the recognition he deserved for his huge contribution to our defence.
But that is, after all, the Canadian Way.
.
I'm just waiting on Nabs to go back to Toronto so he can sell me his SMLE sporter. 
