Box 9

Greenfield
(Queen's County)
Nova Scotia, B0T 1E0
[902-685-3007]

Sleeving the noon day gun 

By John C. Moss

Photo by John C Moss.

The Halifax Noon Day Gun
How d'you weigh a whale, asks the deep-sea fisherman. Take it to a
whaleway station. How d'you fix a cannon? Put a sock in it might be
the smart answer, but it's not the correct one. Better to bore it out
with modern machine tools and sleeve it with a steel liner.
When muzzle-loading cannons of old were loaded and fired, again
and again and again, the repeated explosion of gun powder in the

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barrel built up a residue of hard carbon. As the battle went on, the
residue got hot and became a danger to the loader whose job it was to
use a wooden rod to push the charge to the back of the barrel. A hot
barrel of clinker could ignite the charge, but it was not so much the
carbon residue that posed the danger because, between firings, every
muzzle-loading gun was swabbed with a damp sponge. This was because
smouldering debris was often left over from the cartridge itself or
from the wadding used to prevent gas leakage around the shot (guns
were loaded with cartridge, wad, and shot). After a gun was fired,
debris was first removed with a wad hook or worm, then the gun was
sponged and loaded again.
In times of peace, a variety of bugles, trumpets, drums, guns
and, in the case of highland regiments, bagpipes marked important
intervals in the daily routine of garrisons. In the British Army,
bugle and drum calls had been practice since the mid-17th Century
with the creation of Cromwell's New Model Army.
In port garrisons such as Halifax, Nova Scotia, a gun marked the
daily routine. The soldier's day was strictly ordered from reveille
to the sounding of the 'last post' at night. Some garrisons fired
signal guns three times a day, morning, noon and evening. In others -
Vancouver, British Columbia, for example, the signal was, and still
is, given twice a day.
The noon day gun in Halifax has been a feature of city life
since it was first garrisoned by the British Army in 1749. The gun in
use today is a replica of an 19th Century 12-pounder muzzle-loading
cannon of the Blomefield design, which has been in use since it
replaced an earlier muzzle-loader in the 1870s. The replica is
reputed to have been cast in Collingwood, Ontario, but there is no
certainty about this.
For those interested in cannon design, the Blomefield pattern
was a system of scales and proportions developed by a Colonel Thomas
Blomefield in the late 1700s (c 1790). Blomefield's system, based on
the calibre of the weapon, specified the length, wall thickness and
other dimensions of the muzzle-loader cannon. These specifications
replaced the Armstrong cannon in use up to the 1780s and 90s, which
continued to be used throughout the French Wars (1793-1815). As a
weapon of war, a muzzle-loader was capable of firing ball, shell,
grape, and chain shot.
Throughout the Victorian era, two daily signal guns were sounded
in Halifax, one at noon the other in the evening. The noon day firing
was timed for vessels in the harbour to set their chronometers by
sight of the puff of smoke rather than the noise of the report, which
took time to carry. The evening signal was sounded at eight o'clock
during the winter season and nine o'clock in the summer. It told off-
duty soldiers they had half an hour to return to barracks.

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 Although the Halifax gun is no longer fired in the morning or at
night, the tradition of a noon-day signal has been a regular feature
of city life. In the past, ships checked their global positions at
noon by observing the solar transit, the passage of the sun across
the meridian. The Citadel gun gave ships an accurate time reference.
At one period in the city's history, the 'noon gun' was fired at one
o'clock, which seems contradictory. Some experts in naval history
believe this was to allow ships time to concentrate on the noon solar
observation and to set their chronometers an hour later. A tradition
of observing a silence on Christmas day continues to this day.
The practice of firing a gun to mark the noon day hour was
widespread in European garrisons, but particularly port garrisons. At
one time, the signal was fired from a man o'war and only later taken
over by the military garrison. According to written records, the
Halifax gun was fired from the ramparts of the third citadel. The
present citadel was declared complete in 1856 and it was from this
year that tradition holds the noon day signal came from the Garrison
artillery.
From the founding of Halifax in 1749, the Royal Regiment of
Artillery was responsible for the garrison ordnance and that remained
until the departure of Imperial troops in 1906. Today, the 3rd
Brigade, RA, is the unit portrayed by members of the Military
Interpretation program. The year chosen for the style of uniform and
equipment of the 3rd Brigade was 1860 when it was known to have been
stationed in Halifax.
The Royal Corps of Commissionaires responsible for site security
took over the duties of firing the citadel gun once the British Army
took its departure. Later, the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site
of Canada organisation assumed the duties previously performed by the
Corps of Commissionaires. Parks Canada introduced its 'interpretation
program'.
The area outside the Citadel's main gate was known as the
'saluting battery'. For a while, the saluting battery was the
position from which the gun was fired on ceremonial occasions to mark
the arrival and departure of naval vessels. Today, the gun is
positioned on the ramparts above the main gate.
Halifax is not the only city to maintain the tradition of firing
noon day signals. The same traditions are maintained at Edinburgh
Castle, Fort Henry in Kingston, Signal Hill in South Africa and
Vancouver in British Columbia.
Vancouver has its gun firing at nine o'clock in the evening, but
uses a steam whistle to sound the noon-day signal. This means
provides a jet of steam as well as the whistle. The steam serves the
same purposes as smoke from a cannon: it can be seen in distant parts

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of the harbour by ships wanting to set their chronometers.

Photo by John C Moss Re-enactment crew in the uniforms of the 3rd

Brigade, Royal Artillery.

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 The tradition of gunnery, so large a part of Halifax history,
means that a replica cannon is an important feature of city life, but
not even replicas last forever. Loading and firing the cannon each
day might not seem to wear heavily, but time takes its toll on the
metal, no matter well residue is removed. Hairline cracks and
fissures on the inside surface of the barrel weakened the gun. The
12-pounder replica in use had been cast using much the same method of
manufacture as that used for the gun it replaced.

At the time a decision was made to fit a steel liner, the gun
was actually fairly clean. What debris that could not be removed with
a bucket and bore brush was blasted out with pressurized water. The
primary problem was that the interior metal of the bore was those
small cracks and fissures. A steel liner was therefore required to
strengthen the barrel, maintain its integrity and not crack after
repeated firing. This work required the services of a gun fitter.

The question was where to find the skill and knowledge needed to
restore the 12-pounder to good working order with a sleeve insert.
Enter Tony Walsh who runs a business in Watson's Corners, Ontario,
specializing in the manufacture of replica weapons for military re-
enactment groups in the United States and Canada. His helper in this
work, Derek Holbeche, an armourer, had served his apprenticeship in
the British Army. The Canadian Army had its own apprentice training
scheme from 1942 until 1965 when the program was discontinued under
Minister of Defence Hellyer of the federal government. Although
thousands of first-rate artisans, fitters, electricians and radar
specialists came out of the Canadian apprentice-training program, gun
fitter or armourer were trades not taught. An armourer is skilled in
small arms, a gun fitter in large guns. With some training and
experience, the skills of the two trades are inter-changeable.

Apprentice training in the British Army all but ceased by 2002.

Junior soldiers, for infantry, trades and logistical support, attend
a single military training college. Those considered suitable to
follow technical trades follow the same basic course of studies as
their non-trades oriented fellow soldiers: 42 weeks of basic
training, educational studies and fitness training.

In the Canadian Army, between 1942 and 1945, an estimated 5,000

tradesmen went through the apprentice training program of the
Canadian Technical Training Corps. It is a sad reflection the program
in which young soldiers were taught a trade that would serve them

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well in civilian life ended in the Canadian Army and now, largely,
the British Army has ceased providing apprentice training.

That Derek Holbeche, who served his apprenticeship in the British

Army, was able to use his armourer's skills on the Halifax gun was as
fortuitous as an unexpected bonus to the work done. The gun barrel,
seven feet long and weighing two tons, was loaded on to a transport
truck in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and delivered to a lumber yard in
Lanark, Ontario, about 1500 miles distance. There, it was lifted on
to a lumber truck equipped with a hydraulic lifting arm and taken to
the contractor's machine shop in the hamlet of Watson Corners.
Sleeving the gun as a safety precaution was no small feat. This
modification meant re-boring the barrel and fitting in a steel liner,
intended to add mechanical strength.

The replica gun was no different. During the machining process,

the bore was found to 'hard' spots that made machining a difficult
and laborious operation. The use of iron or steel supports used in
the sand mould for the original casting were probably the cause of
the hard spots. Molten metal poured into the casting cooled at a
faster rate than material farther removed from the supports. This
made the cast harder in the vicinity of the casting props. All this
Derek Holbeche had learned during his time as an apprentice armourer.
To do the job properly, tool bits used in the boring operation were
reshaped, resharpened and frequently replaced from encountering the
'hard bits'.

Completion of the modification work took a full year after which

the weapon had to be tested. This was done by securing the barrel on
a bed of timber on the lumber truck and lighting the charge of black
powder through the touch hole.

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Photo by Tom Shoebridge
Test firing of sleeved 12-pounder, mounted and secured on a lumber
truck
Needless to say, the test went off with a bang and the skilled
ex-soldiers, Tony Walsh and Derek Holbeche considered themselves well
satisfied with their work. The reworked cannon was duly shipped back
to Halifax, mounted on its carriage and tumbrels and put back in
service. At the ceremony of its first firing since the renovation
work the gun fired without a hitch as was to be expected from the
skilled hands of its gun fitters.
© John Moss 4 December, 2005
I wish to acknowledge the generous assistance of those who offered
their skill and expertise in the preparation of this article:
Miriam Walls, Information Management Specialist, Parks Canada, Nova
Scotia; Hal Thompson of Parks Canada, an authority on muzzle-loading
guns who corrected various many technical errors in this article; Ex-
apprentice soldier Derek Holbeche (Arborfield 1952B), Tony Walsh,
R.C.E.M.E and Ex-apprentice soldier Art W. Cockerill (Arborfield
1943B) who edited the work