Biography ENGH Casper
My name
is Ilya and has been interested in firearms history for a long time, often
editing Wikipedia (for example, I rewrote the History section in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauser_Model_1889).
First of all, I would like to thank you for all your web publications which are
very helpful!
Doing
some research I dug out some sources on a firearms designer C. Engh who worked
in Liege in late 19th century. He designed a straight-pull rifle you describe in
"Identification 3830" and an experimental Francotte repeating pistol firing an
early semi-rimmed cartridge, which was shown on the 1900 Exposition of Paris, as
you show on the Francotte page (there is actually more information about that
pistol on the internet, I can send the links). I hope you enjoy reading my
findings!
Two main
sources I used were Espacenet patent database and openarchieven.nl,
both have good search interfaces, so I am not providing page URLs in order not
to lengthen this letter too much.
So Casper
(normally spelled Kasper in 1862 orthography) Kristian Engh was born on December
7, 1855 in a Norwegian locality spelled Arskong, Arstrong or Urskong. Neither of
those are a real Norwegian placename, but Urskog is the former name of modern
Aurskog, a town ~40 km east from Oslo, and its second vowel is pronounced like
French -ou- so Urskoug could've been the legit spelling.
He
migrated to Belgium no later than 1879, when he first appears in the alien
files. Along with him his probable relative Gunda Marie Engh from "Urskongs" is
recorded in 1888, but it's not clear what happened to her later.
His first
name was variously gallicised as Gasper, Gaspar or Gaspard in the documents. The
second part of his given name (forename) was usually spelled Christian, but also
once changed for Charles for unclear reasons. His family name originates from
Norwegian eng 'meadow' probably because he was born on a farm near a meadow, and
it was gallicized as Engen. All these anthroponyms were mixed in Belgian
documents. In two American and one Swiss patents (look them up for details),
however, he consistently uses his Norwegian name "Casper Engh".
He
married Françoise Lambertine Noirfalise (also spelled Noirfalize and Moirfalise)
born in 1858 in Olne, and they had several kids who received official surname
Engen and carried it on. There are also three likely sons who are not directly
connected to the parents in the documents: Herbert Jean Denis Chréstien born in
1885 in Liege, Léopold Alexis born in 1887 in Fraipont near Olne and Louis Jean
born in 1890 in Bressoux. His profession is labelled as armurier and négociant
in two different 1888 documents. He was naturalized as a Belgian citizen between
1890 and 1894 (per his patents) before dying on March 10, 1899 in Liege.
He is
apparently mentioned in Robert Edward Gardner's 1963 directory of "Small Arms
Makers", but Google Books doesn't show any snippets for this book unfortunately,
so the amount of information there is unclear.
Looking
forward to hearing from you soon.
Best
regards, Ilya
Many thanks to ain92ru (reddit)