Birmingham Proof House

About

The Birmingham Gun Barrel Proof House is a weapons proving establishment in Banbury Street, Birmingham, UK. The building was designed by John Horton and consists of a centre bay, emphasised by a segmental parapet, which contains trophies by William Hollins. A Jacobean-style gateway was added in 1883. It is a grade II* listed building.

The Proof House (originally The Guardians, Trustee, and Wardens of the Gun Barrel Proof House of the Town of Birmingham) was established by an act of Parliament, the Firearms Act 1813 (53 Geo. 3. с. 115), at the request and expense of the then prosperous Birmingham gun trade. The corporation was renamed to "The Guardians of the Birmingham Proof House" by the Gun Barrel Proof Act 1855 (18 & 19 Vict. c. cxlviii). Its remit was to provide a testing and certification service for firearms in order to prove their quality of construction, particularly in terms of the resistance of barrels to explosion under firing conditions. Such testing prior to sale or transfer of firearms is made mandatory by the Gun Barrel Proof Act 1868 (31 & 32 Vict. c. cxiii), which made it an offence to sell, offer for sale, transfer, export or pawn an unproofed firearm, with certain...