William Bishop (gun seller)

William Bishop (1797 – 16 March 1871) nicknamed as the Bishop of Bond Street was a gun dealer on New Bond Street, London, who served as an agent for the gunsmith Westley Richards.

Bishop was born in Ealing and became a goldsmith and later served as an agent for Westley Richards.

Known for wearing a top hat indoors and for his charismatic manners he came to be called the "Bishop of Bond Street".

George Teasdale-Buckell described him as: "A large and roomy man, old Bishop, sitting in front of the old white mantelpiece … his gouty leg up on a chair before him.

Dressed from head to foot in the blackest of black, a huge white frill proceeding from his breast, and an enormous pair of shirt cuffs turned back over his coat sleeves, and a neatly brimmed hat, which no mortal eye had ever seen off his head.