Perhaps the most unusual Webley in my collection. This is "The Webley Fan" produced by Webley & Scott in the early 1950's. Like many arms makers, I expect Webley suffered financial difficulties due to lack of demand for its products after World War II. They must have had fully equipped factories, a highly skilled workforce, but not much to make. Not surprisingly they tried to expand into other areas of manufacturing.

It seems Webley was much more than just a gun maker. According to the booklet "Webley 1790 - 1953" published by Webley & Scott themselves, they had always taken in other manufacturing work but this increased significantly after the passing of the Firearms Act in 1920. Their engineering side of their business began manufacturing parts for the British motor trade including front and rear axles, steering units and gear boxes. After 1936 the engineering side had become the main business making aircraft components which, during World War II occupied six factories.