Response to a query to the British War Museum concerning Medical Officers carrying sidearms:
It was entirely usual for RAMC officers to carry a pistol. and, as with other army officers, they were required to purchase their own. By the middle of the war this was in practice possible where .455 revolvers were concerned only by purchasing a revolver 'out of store' (i.e. from the War Office) or second hand, privately. It was of course still possible to purchase pistols not in the Service calibre from civilian sources, and many officers chose to carry something other than (or as well as) a .455 (.32 acp Colts were very popular). Revolvers with the opposed broad arrow markings were 'sold out of store'. These became the officer's property absolutely. At the end of the War, there was a second shortage of revolvers (the American factories were making for the American government, and relations between the British government and Webley were not good). The government therefore launched an appeal to retired officers to sell back their .455s. Very occasionally, therefore, such a revolver is found with cancelled 'sold out of store' markings.
Under English proof law, there is no requirement that a firearm be subjected to civilian proof unless it is to be sold. An officer could therefore own an unproved revolver quite legally. I suspect that almost no-one outside the gun trade was aware of the proof requirement, and doubt that this occurred very often where private sales are concerned. If the revolver came into the hands of a dealer for resale, he would routinely submit it for proof.
I hope that this information is of help in your research.
Yours sincerely,
David Penn
Keeper, Exhibits & Firearms
ABOUT THE REMOVED AND RECOVERED NAME INSCRIPTION
There are three possibilities of what happened to the markings on the left side of the frame.
(The "C F Drew RAMC" had been neatly milled off.)
One would be that the markings were milled off by Drew when he disposed of the gun.
Another would be that a new owner didn't want someone else's name on his pistol.
In either case the gun would have to have been taken to someone with access to a milling machine, not something you find around a normal doctor's office or in a home garage.
The third possibility, and the one I favor, is the one that was mentioned by his son that his father probably turned the gun over to the government during WW2 when they were looking for arms. This is entirely probable and would solve a mystery I have wondered about ever since it came into my possession. It would make sense that the government would remove any individual names before reissuing it. (At least that's my theory, and I'm sticking to it.)
Anyway, I raised the markings with a bead blaster and that started my search for the good doctor. You can see that I did a crappy job of masking off the parts I didn't want to blast and it messed up some of the finish.
WW2 AND LATER HISTORY
The trail of ownership went cold at the start of WW2 and surfaced again in 1947 when the gun was registered with the South Australia Police in Adelaide by a Kenneth E. White.
Included with the gun were some of his annual Pistol License renewals up until 1979 when the last one I have was issued. I also have a more recent registration certificate from 1995 showing him selling it to the person I bought the gun from later that year.
For a short bio on K.E. White and other documentation, please see the folder marked
"WW2 & LATER"
