John Lee

John Lee was a Scottish Canadian inventor and arms designer, best known for inventing a prototype bolt action rifle with his brother James Paris Lee. The rifle they made led to the Lee–Metford and Lee–Enfield series of rifles.

Life

Originally from Hawick, Scotland, Lee was born in 1833 to jeweller George Lee (–8 April 1866) and Margaret Paris (9 Sep 1803–before 1852). He was one of two living brothers (James Paris Lee was born in 1831), and two sisters. The Lee family emigrated to Upper Canada , to Galt. In adulthood, John moved to Wallaceburg where he owned a foundry. His brother married Caroline Chrysler and moved to Stevens Point, Wisconsin. This rifle was a predecessor to the famous Lee–Enfield rifle. The prototype was tested successfully with the first shots occurred just outside the Lee foundry, the target being an oak tree across the Sydenham River, Wallaceburg. The museum prototype has none of the later specifications.

Commemoration

In the spring of 1964, Frank Mann, Wallaceburg's local historian, and Darcy McKeough, Chatham-Kent's MPP, corresponded. Their letters discussed the possibility of erecting a plaque to commemorate the first test shot of the Lee rifle in Wallaceburg. The two discovered they needed the approval of the Archaeological and Historic Sites Board of Ontario (AHSBO) to get official historic site designation.

Historians and dignitaries such as Canadian historian J.M.S. Careless, Richard Apted, Harry Pietersma and politician James Auld helped research and facilitate the investigation. In over a decade of study, few documents substantiated that the first shot occurred in Wallaceburg. Nonetheless, the AHSBO recognized the vast amount of other evidence could not be dismissed. Most of the testimonials came from oral history passed down through the descendants of James Paris and John Lee. On 2 July 1975 a plaque was erected in Municipal Park, now Civic Square Park, close to the original location of John Lee's foundry, stating in part... Tradition holds that this [the first firing] occurred at Wallaceburg while Lee was visiting his brother John, a local foundry owner.