George III was presented with this somewhat macabre object by its maker, William Walls, in 1765. It would certainly have appealed to the King's interest in scientific instruments and machinery. The mechanism incorporates two pistols and is so designed that when an unwary intruder tampered with it, alarm bells (now missing) would start ringing and the pistols would fire. The drawbacks of such a mechanism however, were pointed out when it was described in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1765: 'honest inadvertent people might suffer by it, who not being always recollected, might forget the danger, tho' apprized of it and suffer for their want of memory'. William Walls, about whom nothing else is known, was described in the Gentleman's Magazine as a 'Birmingham manufacturer'. The barrels of the flintlock guns, however, are stamped with the mark used - from 1741 onwards - on the work of non-members of the London Gunmakers' Company, proved in the Company's proof-house.

Engraved WILLM WALLS / FECIT and dated 1761

Catalogue entry adapted from George III & Queen Charlotte: Patronage, Collecting and Court Taste, London, 2004