Found Pic of LOFTUS from the ROYAL INNISKILLING FUSILIERS

dingus

dingus

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I just found out that my Antique WILKINSON MODEL 1892 (which has the name F.C.LOFTUS ingraved in the barrel bottom flat)
Was a Lieutenant March 1 1895 in the 1ST BATTALION OF THE ROYAL INNISKILLING FUSILIERS

Anyone ever hear of them and where are they from? Did they Fight anyone?
The gun has 3 old notches carved in the wood grip and 3 tiny marks in a row on the Trigger gaurd.
Heres a pic of the guys name on my Barrel

Any info on this Battalion would be great :)

click on pic to enlarge


 
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The Skins were recruited from Inniskilling and the area around. Its a large town in Fermanagh Northern Ireland. The area also produced the Inniskillen dragoon gaurds, The proper skins. The regt was disbanded post WW2 I believe. I'll check and post the link. You can access the regtl history and the service record online! I'll get back to you!
 
Hey thanks for them links :)

Looks like this gun coulda been used by Loftus in the later stages of the Bore war!
Like i said the 3 notches in the Trigger gaurd look orignal.


Anyway i got more info comeing from the guys in the Know down in the US and UK now we know F.C.Loftus was in the Frist Battalion Inniskilling Fusiliers.
 
Well i just found out F.C.Loftus was killed in the Boer War 1899
so this is his Revolver he had in that Battle.
Interesting tho i was hopeing he died of old age after servering his country!
I got more info comeing in from England later.
 
Well i just found out F.C.Loftus was killed in the Boer War 1899
so this is his Revolver he had in that Battle.
Click to expand...

WOW! :eek: Poor guy. Could been my great gramps who shot the guy though ;) I am STILL trying to find the Irish owner of my M95 mauser (used in the Boer war.) But because they were irregular volunteers, its going to be hard. Chances are he was hanged or shot after the 1917 upsrisings and so forth.
 
Drum roll please.........pause..............oh and ah.................. Now go to this site and scroll down to Loftus. Dingus you have a real gem there, If you don't spend the winter piecing together Loftus's life and working with me to write a short biography I'll be upset. VC recomendation?!!!!! What did this kid do over there in the darks of africa

http://members.tripod.com/~Glosters/BoerL.htm
 
Here is an account of the battle in which the man who owned your revolver died. Pretty grim. (below occurred on Dec 15th 1899, the day Loftus was killed)

...............Colenso is a remarkable battle; the British middle ranking command showing an incompetence that is hard to comprehend. On the other hand these senior officers had spent decades fighting ill-armed native armies in battles for which the key qualities had been bravery and aggression with subtlety and caution at a discount. None had experience of fighting a European force entrenched and armed with modern magazine rifles and artillery. These officers did what they had done in their battles against natives.

Again the limited knowledge British general officers managed to glean of the ground on which they were required to fight took its toll.
Hart marched his four battalions: three Irish; Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Inniskilling Fusiliers and Connaught Rangers and one English; the Border Regiment; into a storm of fire directed from across the river on three sides of the loop.

Hart prevented any effort to take cover or move the attack out of the loop towards the correct crossing point at Bridle Drift, keeping his dwindling brigade in the loop for the rest of the day. He achieved nothing except heavy losses and a damaging blow to his men’s morale...........

I can not find any record of the "west African Rifles" That is who Loftus was with when recommended (?) for the VC. I suspect his days of glory may have been fighting "savages" in Sieera Leone and not getting sniped or shelled on the banks of the Tulega. It is doubtful that he had opportunity to carve the 3 notches in his gun while fighting the boers. (unless he was recording the rounding up of women and children)
 
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I believe they were "absorbed " by the Royal Irish Rangers(UK), as well as the Connaughts.

Google R.I.R. and you will find thier history, biography and battle honors.
Beat me to it Tim!

Bye the way I bet you guys do not know that the Royal Irish Rangers are an affiliated regiment to the Princess Louise's Fusilliers out of Halifax Armory......

PS I used to have a pretty cool print of the battle honors to these three fine regiments but my ex through it out! Had the Sphinx and a green field of scrolls with each battle honor enscribed!
 
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Thanks David for posting that info and yes we can get a History of Loftus put together! :)

Man ive had this gun over a year and kept thinking F.C Loftus was a Store that sold the Gun. Then i got thinking thats a weird place to put your buisness name UNDER the barrel.
there usally on top.
but theres no room on top cause Wilkinson used up the whole barrel top with his Name addy and Model #
+ he sold his guns to officers Mainly and the guns Unit marked as well.
What a great find this gun is as its so hard to tie guns to owners.

I got a guy in the UK looking into more info as well as the Inniskilling meusem!

The gun still shoots 2 inch groups at 25 yds and im a crappy shot with a revolver. :D
 
The Royal Iniskilling Fusiliers came into being with the "Cardwell Reforms" of 1881, during which new Regiments composed of two Battalions were formed (usually by amalgamating two pre-exisitng Regiments.) In this case it was the 27th (Inniskilling) Regiment of Foot - which dated back to 1689 - and the 108th Regiment of Foot (Madras Infantry) - established in 1766.

Check out the page on this Regiment at "Regiments.Org" (which is an invaluable resource for overviews of all British, empire and Commonwealth military units) - http://www.regiments.org/regiments/uk/inf/027Innis.htm

Don't miss clicking on the many other links incorporated into the above page!
 
Your question should have been more in the line of "who didn't they fight?"
In Victoria's reign there were only TWO years when the British army wasn't fighting somewhere in the Empire! AND she was around for a LOOOONG time.
 
Ya i see that now John,
im intrested in the part where he was in the West African Rifles fighting in the Sierra Leone (thats where he was Recomended for the Victoria Cross) for packing out a wounded Soldier while he himself was wounded.

Any info on the West African Rifles would be great so far i cant find anything on them.
 
dingus said:
Ya i see that now John,
im intrested in the part where he was in the West African Rifles fighting in the Sierra Leone (thats where he was Recomended for the Victoria Cross) for packing out a wounded Soldier while he himself was wounded.

Any info on the West African Rifles would be great so far i cant find anything on them.
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My father in law, lives in Montreal, took a short service Commission with the West African Frontier Force in late 1956. This caused an extension to his service as he had been a National service sapper. I had his Shoulder titles in Brass for a while, lord only knows where they are now. he served in Gold Coast (Ghana). The West African Rifles developed I believe from Locally raised Native Levies and if similar to the Kings African Rifles, (Uganda, kenya tec) went on to serve with Distinction in Burma!
 
A freind from the US found a Pic of F.C. LOFTUS the guy who owened my Wilkinson Revolver. Now we have a face to go with the story and my gun. :)

Click on pic to enlarge
 
It may sound odd, but its a probably good thing the Boer war happened. Otherwise the British Army would still have been training for colonial wars in 1914 and the results could have gone the other way when they met the germans.

Not that the general staff was all that great, but at least some lessons were learned, like marksmanship, 10 rounds rapid, and the fact that the shovel was also as important as the rifle.
 
I have a webley that is marked Ratcliffe 6th Devons, can't be sure which of 6 guys it belonged to but all the stories are interesting any way. The part that is extra cool about these old guns with Providence is that for each one easily researched there are 10,000 with as interesting a history. Eacjh one of these stories makes every other firearm more interesting.
 
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