The London Small Arms Company Ltd (LSA Co) was a British Arms Manufacturer from 1866 to 1935. Based in the

London Borough of Tower Hamlets The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London boroughs, borough in London, England. Situated on the north bank of the River Thames and immediately east of the City of London, the borough spans much of the traditional East End of London and ...

, LSA Co was formed to compete against the

Royal Small Arms Factory The Royal Small Arms Factory (RSAF), also known by the metonym ''Enfield'', was a UK government-owned rifle factory in Enfield, adjoining the Lee Navigation in the Lea Valley. Some parts were in Waltham Abbey. The factory produced British m ...

(RSAF) at Enfield by the gunsmiths who made up the

London Armoury Company The London Armoury Company was a London arms manufactory that existed from 1856 until 1866. It was the major arms supplier to the Confederate States of America, Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War. The same company name was used during World ...

, which had gone out of business as a result of the end of the

US Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded f ...

. Like their counterparts at

Birmingham Small Arms Company The Birmingham Small Arms Company Limited (BSA) was a major British industrial combine, a group of businesses manufacturing military and sporting firearms; bicycles; motorcycles; cars; buses and bodies; steel; iron castings; hand tool, hand, po ...

(BSA), LSA Co were contractors to the British armed forces and produced many British service rifles, notably the

Martini–Henry The Martini–Henry is a breech-loading single-shot rifle with a lever action that was used by the British Army. It first entered service in 1871, eventually replacing the Snider–Enfield, a muzzle-loader converted to the cartridge system. Mar ...

, Martini–Enfield, and Short Magazine Lee–Enfield rifles. They also produced sporting arms and shotguns for the civilian market. Unlike BSA and RSAF, however, LSA Co never achieved high levels of production, preferring to focus on maintaining a greater level of workmanship on their firearms. LSA Co guns are highly regarded by collectors of British military firearms because of their workmanship, which has led most of the existing and surviving LSA Co guns to be in (generally) better condition than their contemporaries from other manufacturers. The market for military and civilian arms dropped markedly in the inter-war years, and LSA Co closed down in 1935, unable to compete with the more efficient factories of BSA Co and RSAF Enfield.

References

* ''The Lee-Enfield Story'' (1993) Skennerton, Ian. Arms & Militaria Press, Gold Coast, QLD {{ISBN, 1-85367-138-X

External links

Royal Bank of Scotland Archives: London Small Arms Co. Ltd
Defunct firearms manufacturers of the United Kingdom Defunct manufacturing companies of England Manufacturing companies based in London