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Add Maymyo guns text
The question that we all want to know, of course, how did these two pairs of Royal Navy cannon find themselves guarding a Burmese potentate's palace in Mandalay ? Well, that will be another story .......... work in progress!<br />
==== The Pair of Guns found at the Palace Exits Exit ====
''Gold is for the mistress, silver for the maid''<br />
''Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.''<br />
Each of these 32-pounders would be serviced by 14 men and a 'powder monkey' (a small boy who could easily run up and down ladders carrying bags of gunpowder from deep in the ship's hold). HMS NEWARK was refitted in 1717 and in 1745. At each refit, and possible alteration to the ship's hull, it was usual to remove and assess which guns would still be needed. Those surplus to requirements, but still in good condition, would be transferred to the ordnance stores and placed on another ship as needed. Well founded cannon, if used with the correct amount of powder, single-shotted and not fired at extreme elevation, could be expected to last 1000 firings and a few were recorded as lasting for 3000 before becoming worn out and useless.
== Pair of Guns at Maymyo Forest Department ==
These neat bronze guns, cast at the East India Company’s gun foundry at [[Cossipore]], in the district known as the 24 Purganas, not far north of [[Calcutta]] on the way to [[Barrackpore]]. They were cast by by Capt A Broome of the [[Bengal Artillery]] who was in charge of the foundry from 1846 to 1864. This pair of guns were cast in 1851, just at the beginning of the best period of his production, and would appear to be 9-pounders. They were undoubtedly cast for a small vessel of some sort, probably intended for mounting on the bow.
These 2 most unusual guns have breeching loops - but underneath the buttons, which I have not seen before.
The [[3rd Burma War]] was prosecuted using large gun vessels such as “IRRAWADY” and “KATHLEEN”, barges, flats, small pleasure craft and the like, in order to move troops and equipment up river to complete the subjugation of Upper Burma. All these vessels carried guns of various calibres. “IRRAWADY” did carry a 64-pounder cannonade amongst other guns. One of the barges “WHITE SWAN”, is noted as being “bristling with guns”
Apparently the Maymyo cannon have been placed on carriages suitable for use on the railway.
