.451” cased Whitworth percussion sporting / match rifle to Simon Sheil Esq, MD of Ballyshannon County Donegal.
£13750
A fine and rare .451” cased Whitworth percussion sporting / match rifle to Simon Sheil Esq, MD of Ballyshannon County Donegal, founder of the Sheil hospital in Ballyshannon. Detented best quality border and scroll engraved lock with set trigger has bolted fully engraved hammer and is signed WHITWORTH. Walnut stock with finely chequered forend and wrist has barrel key to the forend with finely engraved steel furniture including spurred trigger guard with serial number 786 to the tang, patch box and sling button to the rear of the guard with a vacant white metal escutcheon to the rear of the button. Small old repair to the top of the stock behind the hammer. Horn forend cap (sliver missing from top of left side) and single side nail retaining the lock. Whitworth hexagonal bored barrel with break off breech and platinum plug to the snail is signed to the front of the rear sight WHITWORTH PATENT. Rear sight with folding leaves for 100 and 300 yards with ladder to 1000 yards all with platinum lines to the centres. Windage driftable fine blade foresight. In its green baize lined fitted rifle case with its rare original sporting weight Whitworth bullet mould serial number 543 to cast a 480 grain conical bullet, a Frith Patent powder flask, oil bottle and a japanned storage tin. The interior of the lid with a Whitworth Rifle Co Manchester trade label and the exterior with a circular escutcheon engraved SIMON SHEIL ESQr M.D. BALLYSHANNON. Dr Simon Sheil was a generous philanthropist who left a then large sum in his will for the construction of a hospital in Ballyshannon in 1894. The Sheil family were renowned as a medical family for generations and had been in Ballyshannon since the early 19th century. Simon Sheil qualified as a medical doctor in Edinburgh in 1840 and was appointed a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1844. He practised medicine at Sheil House in Ballyshannon during the Great Famine and inherited much of his father’s extensive property. On his own death in 1889 he left endowments in his will which are still providing humanitarian assistance in Ballyshannon today. Simon Sheil died on the 2nd June 1889 and was laid to rest in the Shiel vault, in the Abbey graveyard, overlooking the ruins of the Cistercian Abbey of Assaroe. In his will he left £6,000 for the construction of a hospital with an additional £1,000 available as required, he left his remaining property in the care of the Sheil Trustees for the erection, maintenance and furnishing of the Sheil Hospital which continues to serve the community to this day. In very good condition with good bore and mechanics in a fine case with a good set of accessories including the very rare sporting mould. A nice and rare sporting / match Whitworth rifle to a famous doctor of the Victorian age and the founder of a well known hospital.
