Military firearms in colonial Western Australia 
93 
Figure 21 The Metropolitan Civil Service Rifle Volunteers in camp in 1900. Between December 1899 and mid 1900, 
the corps was issued with the Unofficial Conversion W.A. Pattern Martini-Enfield. Careful examination of 
the rifle in the original photograph reveals the short, two step Nock's form at the breech, a characteristic of 
the Metford profile barrel. Only the Unofficial Conversion Martini-Enfield had this feature. (Photo courtesy 
of History House Museum, Armadale. A.K.P. 661 C.9 A.5). 
Martini-Henry artillery carbine in the W.A. 
Museum Collection (W175) is marked on the right 
side of the butt "P M F over 110" (see Figure 23). 
This carbine is accompanied by its Pattern 1879 
bayonet also marked "110" (W.A. Museum 
W1099). The carbine is marked on the body "Broad 
arrow over S A over 541". The bayonet also bears 
the "Broad arrow over S A" ownership mark. The 
W.A. Government Gazette of 6th April 1893 gives 
the W.A. Permanent Force initials as "W.A.P.F." or 
"P.F.". 157 The mark "P.M.F." therefore is definitely 
not a W.A. mark, standing in fact, for "Permanent 
Military Force", a South Australian variation. 158 It 
is tentatively suggested that this arm may be one 
of the 26 Permanent Force carbines brought over 
from South Australia by the gun crew in 1893. A 
second Pattern 1879 bayonet in the W.A. Museum 
Collection (T418), is also marked with the South 
Australian property marks and bears stand number 
"97", confirming that a number of these arms once 
existed here. From these stand numbers it can be 
deduced that the South Australian carbines and 
bayonets include the numbers spanning "97 - 110", 
potentially identifying 14 of them. The 
circumstantial evidence presented to connect this 
arm with Albany is very strong, but whether this 
arm is definitely linked to Albany must await 
verification. 
There is reasonable evidence to conclude that the 
Permanent Force was issued with rifles in the 1898 
- 1900 period when the Martini-Henry carbines 
were retired. One firearm noted during research 
for The Martini-Enfield Rifle in Western Australia was 
a Martini-Enfield Mark I W.A.Pattem rifle, marked 
on the butt "W.A.A. over 7" (see Figure 24). 159 This 
mark, adopted in 1893, is the identifcation letter 
code of the "Western Australian Artillery", which 
was the artillery company of the Permanent Force. 
The W.A. Government Gazette of 6th April 1893 
stipulated that the shoulder straps of the 
Permanent Force uniform would have as 
identifying initials "W.A.E. for the Engineers and 
W.A.A. for the Artillery". 160 A requisition for 
artillery pattern uniform buttons and badges, and 
