Urs Egg

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Urs Egg (* 1748 in Oberbuchsiten ; † 1831 in London ) was a Swiss or English gunsmith who is known in England as Durs Egg .

Life

Urs Egg was born into a gunsmithing dynasty from Solothurn ; Both Urs and his brother Jakob took over the father's profession. Jakob found a job in the fortress of Hüningen . Lying in an argument with his father, Urs moved in for a short time to live with his brother, who found him work. But by 1770 at the latest he was in London, where he was working for the gunsmith Henry Nock . As early as 1772 he started his own gunsmith business in the City of Westminster district . In collaboration with the British officer Patrick Ferguson , Egg developed the Ferguson rifle . As a highly qualified Swiss gunsmith, Egg made better rifled barrels than his English colleagues. Around 1778 Egg moved its headquarters to the St. James's district . His reputation as a gunsmith grew so that he was appointed court gunsmith. At the age of 35 he married Ann Mary Salomon, with whom he then had seven children. He developed a breech-loading carbine based on the Crespi system .

Egg took British citizenship on August 29, 1791 . The background was growing tensions between England and France and because Switzerland came under the French sphere of influence ( Helvetic Republic ). For the coalition wars that followed, Egg, in collaboration with Nock, produced various rifles and pistols for the British Army and the French royalists. In addition to military weapons, large numbers of dueling pistols, hunting weapons and air rifles were also produced by Egg. Raised wealth through arms sales, Egg invested in equity investments and real estate.

When the Swiss inventor Samuel Johann Pauli came to England in 1814, he made the acquaintance of Egg. There was no cooperation between the two in the field of weapons technology, but Egg gave a large sum of money to build an airship. A patent (No. 3909 from 1815) was issued in both names. Even at that time, it was difficult to deal with Egg because he began to quarrel with those around him. The construction of the airship Dolhpin had dragged on for two years and continued to cause problems. When the coalition wars ended in July 1815, Eggs' income from arms sales collapsed. Annoyed by the delays in the airship, Egg had the work stopped and sued Pauli in court. In parallel with his quarreling, Egg's eyesight deteriorated. From 1822 he was blind. More and more he crushes himself with his family and business partners, one suspects an organic unfortunately as the cause of his behavior until he died in 1831.

John Egg, Urs Egg's son, continued his father's business, but didn't have his father's talent. Significantly more successful, however, was Urs Egg's nephew , Joseph Egg .

Trivia

One of his dueling pistols couple has literary input found in Lovejoy -Kriminalroman "The Judas Pair" by Jonathan Gash .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Hans R. Degen: The Solothurn gunmaker dynasty Egg in: Historischer Verein des Kantons Solothurn : Yearbook for Solothurn History , Volume 69, Verlag Vogt-Schild / Habegger , 1996, pp. 41–56 doi : 10.5169 / seals-325158
  2. ↑ The Ferguson Rifle , in: The Armourer's Bench , October 15, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Egg, Urs
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Egg, Durs
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Gunsmith, inventor
DATE OF BIRTH 1748
PLACE OF BIRTH Oberbuchsiten
DATE OF DEATH 1831
Place of death London