John Rigby
& Co.
From eighteenth-century Dublin to the London gun trade, Rigby built a reputation around craftsmanship, sporting performance and one of British gunmaking’s most distinctive locking systems.
Irish beginnings.
A London legacy.
John Rigby & Co. traces its story to Dublin in 1775. Over the generations that followed, the name became associated with fine sporting arms, competitive rifle shooting and an increasingly international reputation.
A London operation followed in the nineteenth century, and by the end of the 1890s the company had consolidated there. The result is a history that belongs to both the Irish and British sporting traditions.
The Rigby name begins in Ireland.
The first John Rigby established the business in Dublin in 1775. The firm developed during a period when Irish gunmaking supported a sophisticated sporting and military market, and succeeding generations carried the family name forward.
Early Rigby work became known for quality pistols and rifles, while later generations expanded the company’s standing in sporting and target arms.
A second home in the London gun trade.
Rigby opened a London operation in 1865 while maintaining the Dublin business. The move placed the firm inside the increasingly influential London sporting-gun world without immediately abandoning its Irish roots.
In 1897 the Dublin operation closed and London became the company’s sole base, beginning the next major chapter in the Rigby story.
Two and a half centuries of Rigby history.
Selected points in a long story spanning Dublin, London, sporting competition, mechanical innovation and the continuation of traditional gunmaking into the present day.
A lock-up that became a signature.
Patent 1141 of 1879 became one of the mechanisms most closely associated with Rigby. The company referred to it as a vertical bolt; collectors and gunmakers came to know it as the Rising Bite.
The action was used on the firm’s best-grade guns and rifles and became celebrated for strength, complexity and the amount of skilled hand fitting required to make it properly.
Engineering expressed through detail.
Historic Rigby sporting guns often combine a mechanically confident action with engraving that supports rather than overwhelms the form. Lockplates, fences, bolting and stocking work all contribute to an appearance that is immediately rooted in the late Victorian and Edwardian sporting tradition.
Surviving examples make the mechanical history visible: the maker’s name, action work, case furniture and trade labels all become part of the same story.
A defining piece of Rigby engineering.
Between 1879 and 1910, approximately 1,000 guns and rifles were built using the Rigby-Bissell patent action. The system became closely associated with Rigby’s best work and earned an enduring reputation for strength.
Its complexity also became part of its legend. The amount of hand fitting required made the system costly to manufacture, and regular production eventually gave way to simpler alternatives.
More than a century later, Rigby returned to the design, reviving both Rising Bite double rifles and shotguns in its modern London workshop.
- Patent 1141 of 1879
- Vertical-Bolt Locking System
- Best-Grade Sporting Guns
- Revived in Modern London
The history often survives beyond the gun itself.
Original fitted cases, trade labels and period catalogues can add another layer to the story of a Rigby. They record addresses, house identity and the way a sporting gun was originally presented and cared for.
Rigby’s surviving ledgers extend back into the eighteenth century, making documentary history an especially important part of the company’s continuing connection with its past.
Catalogues and cases preserve another kind of history.
Period material helps place surviving guns within the commercial and sporting world in which they were originally made — from Dublin and St James’s Street to later London addresses.
A historic name still connected to its ledgers and workshop.
The twentieth century brought changes in ownership and location, including a period when production moved away from Britain. In 2013 the company entered another major chapter under the L&O Group, reconnecting the Rigby name with a full London gunmaking operation.
Today, Rigby’s Pensbury Place premises bring together workshop, showroom, museum and historical records under one roof. That continuity gives the company an unusually tangible relationship with more than two centuries of its own history.
English Doubles documents a John Rigby & Co. Rigby & Bissell 1879 Patent sidelock ejector dating to the late nineteenth century — a direct connection to the action that became one of the firm’s most recognizable mechanical signatures.
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