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Neville_C wrote:
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Note that the Morton & Eden horseshoe is made from an actual driving band (though not from a "Long Tom" shell), whereas the others have been made to look like such. The grooves in the copper, which have been added by the farrier, are neither evenly spaced nor parallel to one another, as would be the case if they had been formed by the rifling of a barrel. Despite this, it seems likely that the metal used, did, as stated, come from driving band fragments. Gerrans, the well-known Mafeking souvenir-maker, certainly reworked copper in this way.

From the M & E catalogue photo, I think the Sergt. Howard horseshoe was probably made from a British Naval 12-pdr QF driving band. See: British 12 and 15-pdr Shells and their Driving Bands

In comparison to their field-gun equivalents, 155mm Creusot driving bands were hefty pieces of copper. Below are a couple of photographs showing a Naval 12-pdr QF band alongside a "Long Tom" example (at their highest points, roughly 2.85 mm opposed to 6.8 mm thick). One can see why the likes of Joseph Gerrans opted to melt the Creusot bands down before crafting the copper into nakin rings and other such souvenirs. They were simply too thick and heavy to make into trinkets.
















"Long Tom" driving bands were better suited to making metal-working tools than souvenirs. This piece, with traces of solder on its chisel-like tip, came from Mafeking (formerly in the John Ineson Collection).












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As surmised in an earlier post, the Sergeant E.J. Howard horseshoe is definitely made from the driving band of a British Naval 12-pdr QF shell, and not from a Long Tom fragment. The date given for the arrival of the unwelcomed visitor from Bulwana also appears to be incorrect, as Lt.-Col. St John Gore's diary entry for 12 Dec 1899 is: "Green Horse Valley. A quiet day. The weather is now extremely hot, and the flies are very bad indeed. ...." Other entries show that the colonel carefully chronicled every shell that pitched into their camp.

3703 Sergeant Edward James Howard was certainly with his regiment in Green Horse Valley during the siege. However, as there is no evidence that he was a farrier, it is likely that he purchased this horseshoe from a comrade. These souvenirs were made by regimental blacksmiths during down-time, to supplement their wages.

As the driving band used came from a British shell, the horseshoe cannot have been made during the siege. So it seems Howard must have acquired the curio at a later date, together with the tall story that it was made from a fragment of a shell fired by "Bulwana Tom".

The photographs below show the distinctive groove pattern of the driving band and how it matches that seen on a fragment of a Naval 12-pdr QF shell, coincidentally found on "Horseshoe” Hill in 1978. The driving bands of 12-pdr QF shells had a tendency to fracture longitudinally, and it can be seen that the horseshoe is made from the lower section of copper only (similar to the surviving portion still attached to the shell base).

At the bottom I have included a piece of 155mm Creusot "Long Tom" driving band for comparison (all to scale).












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