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Product Details
* PREVIOUSLY THE PROPERTY OF GERALD DURRELL, O.B.E
A .320 (SHORT REV) COLT NEW POLICE REVOLVER, serial no. 11862,
for 1901, with round blued 4in. barrel, the top signed in three lines, crescent fore-sight, sighting groove to the top-strap, swing-out fluted cylinder, solid frame with model details to the sideplate, double action mechanism with blued trigger and polished sides to the hammer, chequered square-heeled hard rubber grips, much finish remaining throughout, supplied with a copy of the previous owner's firearms certificate proving ownership, together with a full-flap leather holster for same
Provenance: Gerald Malcolm Durrell OBE (7 January 1925 - 30 January 1995) was a British naturalist, writer, zookeeper, conservationist, and television presenter. He was born in Jamshedpur in British India and moved to England when his father died in 1928. In 1935 the family moved to Corfu, and stayed there for four years, before the outbreak of World War II forced them to return to the UK. In 1946 he received an inheritance from his father's will that he used to fund animal-collecting trips to the British Cameroons and British Guiana. He married Jacquie Rasen in 1951. They had very little money and she persuaded him to write an account of his first trip to the Cameroons. The result, titled 'The Overloaded Ark', sold well and he began writing accounts of his other trips. An expedition to Argentina and Paraguay followed in 1953, and three years later he published 'My Family and Other Animals', which became a bestseller.
In the late 1950s Durrell decided to build his own zoo. He finally found a suitable site on the island of Jersey and leased the property in late 1959. He envisaged the Jersey Zoo as an institution for the study of animals and for captive breeding, rather than a showcase for the public. In 1963 control of the zoo was turned over to the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust. The zoo repeatedly came close to bankruptcy over the next few years, and Durrell raised money for it by his writing and by fundraising appeals. To guarantee the zoo's future, Durrell launched a successful appeal in 1970 for funds to purchase the property.
Following his separation from his first wife in 1979, Durrell remarried to Lee McGeorge, an American zoologist. He and Lee made several television documentaries in the 1980s, including 'Durrell in Russia' and 'Ark on the Move'. They co-authored 'The Amateur Naturalist', which was intended for amateurs who wanted to know more about the natural history of the world around them, though it also had sections about each of the world's major ecosystems. This book became his most successful, selling well over a million copies; a television series was made from it.
Durrell became an OBE in 1982. In 1984 he founded the Durrell Conservation Academy, to train conservationists in captive breeding. The institution has been very influential: its thousands of graduates included a director of London Zoo (an organisation which was once opposed to Durrell's work). After a short illness he passed away in January 1995. He was cremated and his ashes were buried at Jersey Zoo
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Estimate £600-800
S5 - Sold as a Section 5 Firearm under the 1968 Firearms Act, Sections 7.3 and 7.1 Eligible.
Unless prior arrangement has been made, two weeks after the Sealed bid sale, all Section 5 (and Section 7.1 / 7.3) items will be moved to a Section 5 carriers where storage charges will be incurred.
Goods will not be released until all outstanding charges have been met. Collection will be by arrangement.