James Puckle (1667 - 1724) was an English inventor, solicitor and writer. He is notable for having designed and developed the Puckle gun, a manually-operated revolving flintlock gun that is sometimes considered a conceptual precursor to the machine gun.
Biography[]
Puckle was born in London in 1667. He was a notary public by trade but was also a published playwright and author. In the early 18th century he began to turn his interest to developing weapons of military application, beginning with bladed weapons and then graduating to firearms. The first record of his revolving gun, which he marketed as a "Defence gun", was in 1717, when he demonstrated an early model to a committee of military ordnance officers in Woolwich. Using third-party investments, Puckle subsequently established the Puckle Machine Company to promote and produce his gun. The only known sales came in 1720, when the Duke of Montagu purchased two models. It was ultimatley not adopted by the Army as Puckle had hoped and the lack of commercial interest in the gun saw the Puckle Machine Company go bust in 1722. Puckle died two years later, in 1724.
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References[]
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portraitLarge/mw144268/James-Puckle - James Puckle Image origin