Moncrief Carriage with 7 Inch RML Gun - Flat Holm had 9 guns.

Credits :  upper image [043] lower image [1320]

1869 - Colburn's United Service Magazine and Naval and Military Journal, Part 1 [1322] [499] published the following article in January 1869:

THE ADOPTION OF THE MONCRIEF INVENTION - We are glad to be able to announce (says the Pall Mall) that the Moncrieff contrivance for mounting heavy artillery has been definitively accepted by the Government. Hitherto, a six and a half ton gun is the heaviest which has been mounted on this system, but if it is to be really useful it will have to be employed with much heavier ordnance, and steps are to be taken at once to apply it to a twelve ton gun, as a step towards its further development.

It is quite possible that something more than a mere reproduction on a larger scale will be found necessary when a gun of double the weight has to be dealt with. But the feasibility of applying the system to larger guns is scarcely doubtful; and so marked has been the success of the experiments which have taken place with the invention, so decided is likely to be the saving to the public which its adoption will effect, and so certain is it that the invention in its many possible applications or modifications will prove to be one of very great public utility, that the Government have determined to apply it wherever it may seem practicable or desirable to do so.

Captain Moncrieff has been treated with a prompt liberality. He is to receive, first, a sum of money sufficient to cover the cost of his models and his preliminary expenses. Secondly, he is to receive payment for the time that he has devoted exclusively to the public service about (two years, we believe), at a rate of £1,000 per annum, which rate of pay is to continue so long as Captain Moncrieff is engaged in rendering assistance, in making and completing designs for the appliance of his system, and in superintending the construction of his carriages. Thirdly, he is to receive £15,000 as a reward for his invention, and for the use which may be made of it in Her Majesty's service, either afloat or ashore, in any modification or combination.

Captain Moncrieff on his part is required to undertake to communicate fully and unreservedly all improvements which he may deem practicable; in fact, to give the benefit of his knowledge of this particular subject to the country. Of the sum of £,15,000, £10,000 is to be paid at once, the remaining £5,000 when the inventor ceases to draw his salary of £1,000 a year.

1869 - May 7th — The Moncrieff System of Working Artillery - Captain Moncrief gave a Friday evening lecture upon the above subject to a large audience. His system of working heavy guns, whereby the force of the recoil is utilised to lower and raise the gun on the see-saw principle, the gun being at one end of a bent lever and a weight at the other, has already been fully described in these columns. The plan does away for the necessity of enclosures in fortifications, because the gun is loaded below the level of the parapet, and then rises above it by means of the counter-balancing weight. The lecturer said that he first thought of this plan  while assisting in the operations before Sebastopol. - The Engineer [015] [499] 28th May 1869.