David Blair gunmaker Birmingham & Robert Burns

[Neil McLellan]

As it's Burn's a Night tonight here's a Birmingham connection with the great poet. Viv.

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[Neil McLellan]

There's an account of David Blair, his gunmaking and his other activities in Birmingham Archives and Collections (Local History).
Type David Blair into their search site at:
https://calmview.birmingham.gov.uk to locate the relevant catalogue entry.

 

[Neil McLellan]

The title of the account in Birmingham Archives and Collections is "David Blair, Robert Burns, Radicals and Birmingham: A Story of Politics, Poetry, Pistols and Blades in the Age of Revolution".
Universal access is now available: CLICK HERE (https://birmingham.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_3ccb1ed7-2670-4846-ad3a-9f79cf1e7770/ )

 

[Neil McLellan]

Hi Wam. Very intriguing. Also I think there are differences in whether Dr Maxwell was given Burns's duelling pistols or his excise pistols. Viv.

My information about all this is that David Blair gave Burns the flintlock holster pistols and Burns famously acknowledged their receipt.. They have Blair's marks imprinted. The excise pistols are quite different and may well have "come with the job". The two are compared below:



As for Dr William Maxwell, Burns gave him the pistols from Blair just before he died.
Blair already knew William and his older brother James Maxwell from previous encounters.
The Balamerino Dirk has a quite quite different provenance. Maxwell owned it initially having paid a small cask of Ferintosh whisky for it. It was stolen from him and stripped of its silver. He later regained it and he gave it to Burns. Burns chose not to have it repaired and gave it to David Blair who left it to his eldest son, also David. It eventually turned up over 100 years later with solicitors in Glasgow as a bequest and was donated to the Mauchline Memorial Tower Museum and it's now held at the Dean Castle Museum in Scotland.