Smallarms of the English East India Company

Abstract

The ultimate historical importance of this topic must lie in the part it plays in an assessment of the role played by European technology in the British conquest of India. The results of eleven years work on the mass of military historical information and technical data in the East India Company records will appear in a forthcoming book intended as a tool in making such an assessment. This summary outlines the categories of smallarms which archaeologists might expect to find on the wreck sites of English East Indiamen, and then offers a specific example of how a smallarm has helped to identify a wreck.

A Late-18th-Century Merchantman Wrecked in the South Edinburgh Channel, Thames Estuary, England

“…). These would all fit a sea‐service musket of c .1771–1818 (Harding, : 265). It should be noted that Buttall is not recorded as a supplier to the HEIC.…”