David Lloyd (riflemaker and sportsman)
David Llewellyn Lloyd (1910-1996) was an English pilot, deer-stalker, ballistician and sporting rifle maker, of Northamptonshire, England and Glencassley Estate in Sutherland, Scotland.
David Llewellyn Lloyd | |
|---|---|
| Born | David Llewellyn Lloyd 24 June 1910 Northamptonshire, England |
| Died | 24 April 1996 (aged 85) London, England |
| Occupation | riflemaker |
| Spouse(s) | Evadne Lloyd |
Although already an experienced pilot he was considered too old at 29, to be called up for service during the Battle of Britain in the Royal Air Force in the Second World War, instead he became the senior flight controller based at Tangmere, Sussex during the Battle of Britain.
Extensive deer stalking, and frequent rifle shooting visits to Bisley ranges, Lloyd established the David Lloyd & Co. riflemakers company (registered company 05202134) at Pipewell Hall in 1936, and in the early 1950s developed the .244 H&H Magnum rifle cartridge, later adopted by Holland & Holland of London.
Although David had no formal training as a Riflemaker, he employed a team of top quality craftsmen from the London & provincial trade to build the rifles in the workshops at Pipewell Hall.
Lloyd developed the distinctive Lloyd rifle concept, and from the 1960s to the mid-1990s he built high-quality, magazine-fed sporting rifles based on commercial Mauser 98 & Sako actions with distinctively integral scope sights, capable of dependably high accuracy at long ranges, and of handling modern high-intensity, flat shooting cartridges such as the .244 H&H, the .264 Winchester Magnum and the .25-06 Remington. David would often say that he attached a rifle to a scope, rather than the more normal saying of attaching a scope to a rifle.
The UK shooting sports weekly Shooting Times voted the Lloyd rifle number 8 in its list of the top 12 Rifles of All Time (the Kalashnikov AK-47 was number 7), and Country Life magazine described Lloyd himself as “a National Living Treasure”. Lloyd rifles are admired, owned and used by eminent international small-arms experts, including riflemakers Bill Ruger and Roy Weatherby, and by several owners of Scottish deer forests.
In an active deer-stalking career extending to well over 60 years, David Lloyd accounted for more than 5,000 Scottish highland red deer stags, the vast majority of them with rifles built by his company.
Lloyd's wife Evadne (“Bobby” - the longest-serving governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company in its history) keenly supported him in his business, and helped him to source fine walnut blanks for his rifle stocks from various European sources. On Lloyd's death in 1996 she took on the business, which by then was doing little trade, and ran it until her own death in 2003, when the company was sold to John Shirley, formerly Technical Manager with James Purdey and Sons of London. He subsequently offered the business name, goodwill and records of the David Lloyd company for sale at auction in London in December 2006.
References
- http://www.auction-net.co.uk/viewAuction.php?id=300&offset=250&PHPSESSID=02dc66f39ebefeae5e80cb12b (Auction Sale Catalogue)
Following the auction of the David Lloyd Rifle Company on 14 December 2006 the late Ronald Wharton (from Rigby's) bought the company. He redesigned the scope mounts take a modern scope. The mounts will take a 1.7-10 x 42 Swarovski scope.
The new Model 2000 David Lloyd rifle was fitted with a Z 6 1.7 -10 x 42 Swarovski scope, thus bringing the rifle back to its original position as one of the finest Stalking Rifles available. Older models fitted with the original 4 power Swarovski Scope can have the new updated mounts and scope fitted; this work has been carried out to several customer's rifles.
Ronald Wharton also acquired Charles Lancaster Gunmakers. Ltd From there workshop in Sussex Wharton, Lancaster and Lloyd rifles can be refurbished or made up from only the finest quality Mauser actions. Ronald Wharton established his own company in 1984; Prior to that point he worked as a riflemaker for John Rigby & Co. (Gunmakers) Limited, London,