The Webley company was founded in the late 18th century by William Davies, who made bullet moulds.

After 1921 Webley service revolvers were manufactured by the government-owned Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield.

However, wartime shortages ensured that all marks of the Webley, including models in .455 and .38/200, remained in use through World War Two.

In 1920, the passing of the Firearms Act in the UK, which limited the availability of handguns to civilians, caused their sales to plummet.

Demand for air guns increased rapidly in the 1920s and Webley's business began to grow again, with an inevitable peak related to weapons supply for British military use during the Second World War.

Declining sales led to the decision to give up firearms manufacture completely in 1979, however air gun production at the Birmingham factory continued until 22 December 2005, when the company closed down.

[1] Until 1979 Webley & Scott manufactured shotguns and revolvers for private use, as well as producing sidearms for military and police use.

Webley's production originally consisted of hand-crafted firearms, although mass-production was later introduced to supply police and military buyers.

Webley's first popular success came with its first double-action revolver, adopted by the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1867.

There is a well-known story that a pair of Webley RIC Model revolvers were presented to Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer by Lord Berkeley in 1869, and it is believed that General Custer was using them at the time of his death in the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Webley's popular pocket revolver, The British Bull Dog, was developed in 1872, available in .44 Short Rimfire, .442 and .450 calibers, and widely exported and copied.

[11][12] The Mark II, known as the service air rifle because of its use by the UK military, used break-action with a superimposed barrel locked by bolt action.

[13] In January 2011 Webley (international) Limited held a creditors meeting Under Section 98 Insolvency Act 1986.

[14] According to the Statement of Affairs produced by the Liquidators, Webley (international) owed their unsecured creditors a sum of £164,595.76.

It was not a small pistol, rugged and accurate at short range, but also heavy with an awkward grip angle.

It was prone to jamming throughout most of its service career, owing largely to its cordite ammunition, which left residue that fouled the close tolerances of its diagonally locking breech.

Webley & Scott produced a number of single-shot, break open signal flare gun devices used by Commonwealth Military Forces during the First and Second World Wars.

A variant, differing only in its use of black plastic grip panels instead of the earlier wood, was produced by Colonial Sugar Refinery in Sydney, Australia in 1942.

Perhaps the most famous example of a No.1 Mk 1 flare pistol is in the collection at the Conception Bay Museum, Harbour Grace, NL.

The gun was lent by Edward Langdon Oke, IV, a veteran of WW1 and the then editor of the Harbor Grace Standard newspaper, to the first Canadian to make a transatlantic flight, Capt.

Boyd took off 9 Oct 1930 from the Harbour Grace airstrip in the plane Maple Leaf (aka, Columbia), navigated by Lieut.

The company logo is that of a bird wing with the tips angling left and W+S underneath and the gun is stamped 7648.

[15] In 2020, they began production of weapons for the Indian civilian market, including the Webley Mk IV, and the WP20, a newly built .32 Auto semi-automatic pistol.