82 
G.B. Trott^ 
On 17th February 1877 he received per barque 
Clifton, 131 Pattern 1853 Snider .577 inch calibre 
long rifles and bayonets and seven Snider short 
rifles with sword bayonets. One chest of 20 long 
rifles was water damaged and was sold at auction 
on 11th April 1877, leaving Harvest with 111 long 
and seven short Sniders which he intended issuing 
"immediately" to the M.R.V. 60 Harvest was 
disappointed as to the quantity of Sniders he could 
get for his Defence Estimate vote and in September 
1876, seven months after the Sniders were ordered, 
sought to have an additional 24 Sniders purchased 
from the War Office in London at a reduced rate. 61 
He received these latter arms in mid 1877, some 
months after the original shipment arrived. Instead 
of the 24 calculated for in the second order, the 
quantity sent per the Eulie was three chests 
containing "33 Snider-Enfield Rifles, Steel Barrels, 
Mark III, Short butt, 2nd Class". Harvest wrote in 
the margin of the shipping advice "24 requested 15 
September 1876, 33 sent - so much the better as a 
case of the previous lot is lost to us". 62 The M.R.V. 
were issued some of these 33 rifles in addition to 
the original 118 long and short Sniders received 
per the Clifton. 63 
The question of marking the arms arose 
immediately upon receipt of the Clifton lot of 
Sniders, with Harvest writing to the Colonial 
Secretary on 17th February 1877. 
"Propose to receive rifles for Perth Rifle Volunteers 
(M.R.V.) as soon as landed from Clifton, should be 
engraved according to regulations before issue to 
corps. Suggest the engraver be furnished from the 
Convict Establishment to execute the work in the 
armoury adjoining the guard in No, 2 Pensioner 
Barracks at Fremantle". 64 
On the same date Harvest wrote again to the 
Colonial Secretary's Office seeking advice as to the 
wishes of the Governor regarding the marking of 
the arms, whether they should be engraved 
"from 1 throughout with 'M.R.V.' Metropolitan Rifle 
Volunteers, for whom the arms are immediately 
intended or 'W.A.V.' Western Australian 
Volunteers...or issued without marks". 65 
The Colonial Secretary's Office commented on 
22nd February 1877: 
"I also agree with Col. Harvest as to the engraving of 
the sound rifles in that these be numbered 
throughout, with the letters 'W.A.V.' which I think 
would be better than 'M.R.V.' but on this point I am 
willing to defer to Col. Harvest's opinion if he 
considers the latter initials preferable. The Engineers 
can 1 think be sent to Perth to do the work under Col. 
Harvest's superintendence". 66 
The location where the engraving was to be done 
and the personnel to do the work were settled in a 
letter from Lt. Col. Harvest to Mr. Howard of the 
Colonial Secretary's Office on 16th March 1877. In 
response to a delay in the supply of engraving 
tools made at the Fremantle Prison, Harvest wrote: 
"There is some difficulty about certain tools and 
chisels - required by Prisoner Davis for engraving the 
Volunteers Arms he is at work on...will you kindly 
have this matter put right and the tools sent up? This 
engraving is slow work and we can't afford the delay 
of sending to Fremantle". 67 
From this correspondence much is again clarified 
about the engraving of colonial arms, except which 
letters were eventually decided upon. In view of 
the reference in Harvest's letter to the engraving of 
the arms "according to regulations" and hi s 
preference for "W.A.V", it is reasonable to 
conclude that they were indeed engraved that way 
rather than "M.R.V". This conclusion is supported 
by the fact that the latter letters are unknown on 
any Western Australian Snider arm at this time, 
while the regulation "V over W A over number" is 
known on four Western Australian Snider arms, 
(see Figure 9). These are a Pattern 1860 Snider 
short rifle Mark III engraved on the wood of the 
butt "V over W.A. over 5 over P". (W. A. Museum 
W85.22) and a Snider long rifle Mark III engraved 
on the brass buttplate tang "V over W A over 50 
over P" (W.A. Museum W73.91). The third and 
fourth rifles, in private collections, are also Snider 
long rifles Mark III, marked respectively, "V over 
W A over 77 over P" and "V over W A over 99 
over P" on the brass buttplate tangs (see Figure 
10). The reason the short rifle is engraved on the 
wood rather than the buttplate is possiblv 
explained by the fact that the buttplate of the short 
rifle is case-hardened iron rather than soft brass 
and may have been too hard for the homemade 
engraving tools made in the Convict Establishment 
workshops. The meaning of the letter "P" is 
unknown but may indicate issue to the Perth 
company of the W.A. Volunteers or "Purchase", to 
signify colonially purchased arms rather than 
Imperial arms on loan. These "V over WA" marks 
conform to the regulations of 1862, and the Mark 
(III) of these arms conforms to the 1877 order. It is 
interesting to note that Snider rifle "V over W A 
over 99 over P", still has the correct slotted, 
squared tip cleaning rod present. Although from 
another rifle, it is from the same 1877 group of 151 
Snider Mark Ills arriving in two batches in that 
year. The rod is marked across the shaft, just below 
the tip, "V over 150", indicating that the small 
accoutrememts also were marked according to 
regulations. Several Pattern 1853 Enfield bayonets 
have been noted with this marking, such as 
over 16", which is in the W.A. Museum collection 
(W 1328). 
The 1881 Returns show the M.R.V. as bein.C 
armed with 140 Sniders, 68 confirming that the) 
were issued most of the additional 33 Sniders 
received later in 1877. Correspondence confirms 
that Prisoner Davis, now free, also engraved these 
second order Sniders. 69 In a Minute dated 15th 
January 1884, this corps is listed as having in it 9 
