James Paris Lee
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James Paris Lee (9 August 1831 – 24 February 1904) was a British Canadian
inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...
and
arms Arms or ARMS may refer to: *Arm or arms, the upper limbs of the body Arm, Arms, or ARMS may also refer to: People * Ida A. T. Arms (1856–1931), American missionary-educator, temperance leader Coat of arms or weapons *Armaments or weapons **Fi ...
designer. He is best known for having invented the Lee Model 1879 rifle, which is the first
bolt-action Bolt action is a type of manual Action (firearms), firearm action that is operated by ''directly'' manipulating the bolt (firearms), turn-bolt via a cocking handle, bolt handle, most commonly placed on the right-hand side of the firearm (a ...
detachable
box magazine A magazine, often simply called a mag, is an ammunition storage and feeding device for a repeating firearm, either integral within the gun (internal/fixed magazine) or externally attached (detachable magazine). The magazine functions by holdi ...
-fed rifle. These features would be incorporated into more successful repeating rifle designs later on, such as in the Lee–Metford and
Lee–Enfield The Lee–Enfield is a bolt-action, magazine-fed repeating rifle that served as the main firearm of the military forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth during the first half of the 20th century, and was the standard service rifle of th ...
rifle series.


Early life

Born in
Hawick Hawick ( ; ; ) is a town in the Scottish Borders council areas of Scotland, council area and counties of Scotland, historic county of Roxburghshire in the east Southern Uplands of Scotland. It is south-west of Jedburgh and south-south-east o ...
, Scotland, Lee emigrated with his family to Galt,
Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada () was a Province, part of The Canadas, British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of the Province of Queb ...
in 1836 at age 5. He built his first gun at the age of 12, using an old horse-pistol barrel, a newly-carved
walnut A walnut is the edible seed of any tree of the genus '' Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, '' Juglans regia''. They are accessory fruit because the outer covering of the fruit is technically an i ...
stock, and a priming pan made from a halfpenny. The gun failed to function effectively when first fired, but started Lee's interest in gunsmithing and invention. In 1858, James Lee and his wife Caroline Lee (née Chrysler, of the later automotive family) moved to
Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...
in the US, where they had two sons: William (born in 1859) and George (1860). They later returned to Canada in 1865.


Rifle developments

In 1861, Lee developed a
breech-loading A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition from the breech end of the barrel (i.e., from the rearward, open end of the gun's barrel), as opposed to a muzzleloader, in which the user loads the ammunition from the ( muzzle ...
cartridge conversion for the Springfield Model 1861 rifle musket, managing to acquire a contract for 1,000 rifles from the
US Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...
during the
American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...
. The Lee Civil War
carbine A carbine ( or ) is a long gun that has a barrel shortened from its original length. Most modern carbines are rifles that are compact versions of a longer rifle or are rifles chambered for less powerful cartridges. The smaller size and ligh ...
was manufactured in
Milwaukee Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...
, Wisconsin. In total 250 were delivered but due to a bore diameter error, these were rejected by the army and the weapon did not see use in the Civil War. These guns are rare and highly collectible. In 1872, he submitted a single-shot breech-loading rifle to a US Army Trials board which was considering a replacement for the 'trapdoor' system of Erskine S. Allin, which had begun in 1865 as a conversion of the Model 1861 Rifle Musket. The Allin design had progressed through several modifications, including the Model 1866 (another conversion) and the models of 1868, 1869, and 1870. With the exception of the M1865 in .58 rimfire, all the others were .50-70 centerfire. Lee's sample (in the newly-authorized .45-70 cartridge) had a hammer-operated falling-block design, similar to the Peabody and the Martini. His rifle did not win the trials (that honour went to the latest Allin design, the Model 1873) but with further consideration his gun was found worthy. $10,000 was appropriated, and Lee moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, to supervise construction of the new rifle. Tooling consumed most of the money, and only 143 rifles were built. Known to collectors as the "Model 1875 Springfield-Lee Vertical Breech", it is one of the rarest and most desirable Springfield arms of the post-Civil War period. Lee No. 53.png, Lee No. 53 (2 lbs 7 oz. (1.106 kg)) Lee No. 54.png, Lee No. 54 (2 lbs 13 oz. (1.276 kg)) Lee No. 61.png, Lee No. 61 (2 lbs 11 oz. (1.219 kg))


The Lee magazine systems and rifles

The Lee Model 1879 rifle was a landmark rifle design, incorporating a turn-bolt action and a spring-loaded column-feed detachable box magazine system. this was Lee's first successful
magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...
-fed repeating rifle. Two first designs—Model 1879 and Model 1882 were adopted by
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
and the
US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
, and two later designs—the Remington-Lee M1885 and the Winchester-Lee or Lee Navy M1895—were also adopted militarily and sold commercially. His bolt-action and box-magazine fed design interested the British ordnance authorities and in 1889, after extensive trials, the
British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...
decided to adopt the Rifle, Magazine, Lee–Metford (RMLM) as a standard issue arm. This in turn developed into the Rifle, Short, Magazine, Lee–Enfield (or SMLE), the standard British service arm for many decades and in official service for nearly a century. Perhaps Lee's greatest individual impact on modern
small arms A firearm is any type of gun that uses an explosive charge and is designed to be readily carried and operated by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see legal definitions). The first firearms originate ...
development came with his invention for a spring-loaded column-feed
magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...
system for
centerfire Two rounds of .357 Magnum, a centerfire cartridge; notice the circular primer in the center A center-fire (or centerfire) is a type of metallic cartridge used in firearms, where the primer is located at the center of the base of its casing (i. ...
cartridge rifles. The main advance of the Lee magazine was that it carried its cartridges in two columns, rather than the single column which was typical of the time. This allowed twice the ammunition to be carried without making the magazine any deeper or longer. When fitted with a charger bridge, the Lee magazine could be quickly reloaded with either individual cartridges, like a tubular-feed magazine (which was in vogue for military rifles in certain nations of that era), or with a charger (aka ''
stripper clip A stripper clip (also known as a charger or charger clip, especially in Commonwealth English military vocabulary) is a speedloader that holds several cartridges (usually between 5 and 10) together in a single unit for easier and faster loadin ...
'') holding five rounds each. These charger clips were similar to the Lee or Mannlicher ''en bloc clip'' systems, except that the rounds were stripped off the charger into the magazine, rather than having the entire clip with all of the cartridges placed into the weapon, as was the case with the ''en bloc'' clips. This was desirable, because the main drawbacks of the ''en bloc'' clip system is that the weapon cannot be loaded without a clip, it cannot be used as a single-shot weapon, and you cannot top-off a partially full magazine; all shots must either be fired or ejected before a new clip could be loaded (which is inconvenient when a soldier finds himself between actions with only a few cartridges left in the magazine with no way to reload). The charger system avoided all this, allowing ammunition to be carried in units of five and rapidly loaded like an ''en bloc'' clip, but also allowing it to be easily used without the clips (albeit with somewhat slower loading). Although the charger clip was invented by Paul Mauser in 1889, for the Mauser M1889 rifle, it was not quickly adapted to the new Lee-Metford rifle, the first rifle using Lee's action and two column box magazine design (the second being the famed Lee-Enfield), because they were considered to make the ammunition heavier, and hinder the ability to replenish the magazine with separate rounds. It was believed that the capacity of the magazine is already sufficient, and in a pinch it would be easier to give the riflemen additional magazines for emergency reloading. It was not until the end of the
Second Boer War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and ...
that it became apparent that the ability to load from clips saw a clear advantage. The Lee magazine was perfectly compatible with the charger device, in its later development 1903 No1Mk1(SMLE) onward, unlike tube-magazine guns, and had other advantages over the Mauser-style, five-shot, single column magazine. The Lee magazine differed in holding the ammunition in two vertical columns, rather than a single stack, allowing for ten rounds to be carried in a magazine that was no deeper than that of the M1889 (although later Mauser rifles, such as the
Mauser Model 1893 The Mauser Model 1893 is a bolt-action rifle commonly referred to as the Spanish Mauser, though the model was adopted by other countries in other calibers, most notably the Ottoman Empire. The M1893 was based on the experimental M1892 rifle, whi ...
were influenced by the Lee magazine; they retained the five-shot capacity and remained non-detachable, but they adopted double columns, allowing the entire magazine to fit within the stock, rather than protruding below in front of the trigger guard, like that of the
Mauser Mauser, originally the Königlich Württembergische Gewehrfabrik, was a German arms manufacturer. Their line of bolt-action rifles and semi-automatic pistols was produced beginning in the 1870s for the German armed forces. In the late 19th and ...
,
Mosin–Nagant The Mosin–Nagant is a five-shot, Bolt action, bolt-action, Magazine (firearms), internal magazine–fed military rifle. Known officially as the 3-line rifle M1891, in Russia and the former Soviet Union as Mosin's rifle (, ISO 9: ) and inform ...
, Carcano, Mannlicher, and in other rifle designs of that period). Having a magazine holding ten rounds which is loaded via five-round charger clips also allows the soldier to reload the magazine every time he fires five shots, just like he would with a five-round magazine, only with a five-round reserve at all times. With a 5-shot magazine, you have to wait until the gun is empty before reloading with another charger; in an Enfield, the only time you need to completely empty the magazine is in cases of emergency. The rest of the time you can use it as a five-shot rifle with a five-round charger clip in reserve. This is one reason why the UK never adopted 10-round chargers to go with the ten-round magazines. Another benefit of the detachable magazine was that with the magazine detached, the rifle became a single-shot weapon, a feature seen as desirable by some countries for training purposes or for maintaining control over sometimes unreliable colonial or indigenous troops, many of whom were hardly familiar with breech-loaders at all, let alone repeating firearms. It also allowed the rifle to be used as a single-shot weapon during long-range volley fire, with the full magazine set aside for when the enemy closed and rapid fire was needed (the later ''magazine cutoff device'' was intended for a similar purpose). The Lee magazine was also adaptable to a variety of cartridges and bolt systems regardless of bullet shape or cartridge length, whereas a non-detachable magazine (such as used on the Mauser Gewehr 98) had to be designed and fitted integrally with the rest of the gun; in order to deepen the magazine of a Mauser, one would have to redesign the entire action, as the magazine is machined integrally with the receiver; the capacity of a tube magazine is constrained by the length of the weapon. Because the cartridges were stored in a double column and the magazine wasn't integral to the rifle, the Lee magazine could be easily deepened to store additional cartridges in keeping with evolving small arms doctrine. Although no Lee rifle ever carried more than ten rounds (with the exception of the so-called "trench" magazines from
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, which was designed to use a 20-round magazine), the design served as the basis for what later became the universal standard for military rifles, the detachable, sheet-metal ''box magazine''. In combat, the detachable magazine theoretically allowed a soldier to carry many loaded magazines, thus speeding reloading time, although this was never practised until much later on. At the time Lee's magazine was introduced, rifle magazines were expensive to fabricate and could not be regarded as expendable items. Lee's idea of carrying additional loaded magazines was not seen as an advantage by most major military forces at the time, who preferred to issue the soldier with loose cartridges or charger clips; loading by inserting a full new magazine did little to speed up the loading process over a stripper clip, and added a great deal of cost (one or two stripper clips can be made at a fraction of the price), and a metal magazine also weighs a great deal more, adding to a soldier's ammunition load. With the exception of handguns, it wasn't until rifles with magazine capacities of 20 rounds or greater were invented that detachable magazines were regularly used to carry ammunition in (although many
pistol A pistol is a type of handgun, characterised by a gun barrel, barrel with an integral chamber (firearms), chamber. The word "pistol" derives from the Middle French ''pistolet'' (), meaning a small gun or knife, and first appeared in the Englis ...
s and most
submachine gun A submachine gun (SMG) is a magazine (firearms), magazine-fed automatic firearm, automatic carbine designed to fire handgun cartridges. The term "submachine gun" was coined by John T. Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun, to descri ...
s adopted detachable magazines at a very early date). While the costs of carrying full magazines were not thought to outweigh the benefits in a rifle with a five- or ten-round magazine, the time it took to load a 20-round magazine with stripper clips was considered excessive, and militaries switched to rifles with double-column, detachable magazines in the Lee style. Although video games and movies frequently depict soldiers armed with
Lee–Enfield The Lee–Enfield is a bolt-action, magazine-fed repeating rifle that served as the main firearm of the military forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth during the first half of the 20th century, and was the standard service rifle of th ...
rifles loading by inserting a new magazine in reality the Lee-Enfield rifle was always loaded by stripping two ten-round charger clips into the magazine, in both World War I and World War II. The only exception was that soldiers armed with pre-charger loading Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield were sometimes equipped with a single spare magazine, while the first magazine was attached to the rifle with a chain link as it was feared that the primary magazine might be accidentally detached and lost, something that wasn't a risk on weapons without detachable magazines. The earlier Remington-Lee rifle could also be fitted with a Mills belt with pockets for carrying four (5-round) magazines. Lee's detachable column-feed magazine system eventually became the pre-eminent design after World War II, and served as the basis for the box magazines used in all modern military small arms. Lee independently and concurrently developed an ''en bloc'' charger-loaded magazine along the lines of the system developed by Austrian engineer Ferdinand von Mannlicher, which was used in the M1895 Lee Navy rifle adopted by the US Navy in 1895. In 1891, Lee sued von Mannlicher, claiming that the latter's design infringed upon his ''en bloc'' magazine patent but lost the case.


Later life

James Paris Lee died in Galt,
Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
on 24 February 1904, having lived to see his rifles in service throughout several colonial conflicts, including the
Second Boer War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and ...
. On 2 July 1975 a plaque was erected in Municipal Park, now Civic Square Park, Wallaceburg close to the original location of his brother's foundry, stating in part, ''... Tradition holds that this he first firingoccurred at Wallaceburg while Lee was visiting his brother
John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...
, a local foundry owner''.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, James Paris Lee, James Paris Lee, James Paris Lee, James Paris Lee, James Paris Lee, James Paris Lee, James Paris Lee, James Paris Lee, James Paris Weapon designers Firearm designers Lee, James Paris Immigrants to Upper Canada