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British Royal Engineers officer Herbert Taylor Siborne (1826 - 1902) came from a military
family. His father, Captain William Siborne, was a military historian. General Siborne joined
the Royal Engineers in 1846 and served in South Africa, including in the Xhosa Wars in the
early 1850s. He was promoted to captain in 1855 and colonel in 1877. He was the British
member of the European Commission of the Danube 1873–1881 and retired the following
year as with the honorary rank of major-general. The commission was created at the end
of the Crimean War in the Treaty of Paris and controlled the three mouths of the Danube
River in Chilia, Sulina, and St. George and improved and regulated international trade along
the river. It served as a model of international cooperation and lasted until 1938 as the
German government seized more control. After retiring, Siborne became a military historian,
building off of his father’s work on the Battle of Waterloo. An included December 10, 1926,
“statutory declaration” from William Herbert Siborne (1881-1964), the general’s son who was
an sergeant-major in World War I and was wounded, details the history of the pistols and
indicates he inherited the cased set upon his father’s death in 1902 and then sold them to
Henry Brace of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in October 1926. The pistols are also recorded in
“Gun Digest Treasury: The Best from 25 Years of Gun Digest” by John T. Amber
on pages 138-139.