About
About Enfield-Stuff
Enfield-Stuff is a website about history, which is another way of saying it is about people and their stories.
Enfield-Stuff started out, in those days before websites, as a spreadsheet to catalog my notes about Lee-Enfield brass oil bottles (‘oilers’). It quickly morphed into a personal in-house wiki about all the ‘stuff’ of Lee-Enfields, the markings, rifles, books, bayonets and gear. The first Enfield-Stuff “fast-mark-finder” oiler web page made its public debut in 1995.
The site – and our interests – have evolved. Over time I found that I am less and less interested in the various makes and models of rifle and much more interested in the human part of the story.
I have long been interested in the period 1890-1920, when the world went through so many changes, physical, political and social, in a very short time. The greatest transformation was in imagination – the way men and women thought about themselves and their place in the world.
Coincidently, that same era saw the British Empire introduce the Lee-Enfield rifle, adopt regimental shoulder titles and cap badges, and introduce unit acronyms throughout the British Empire – an empire that encompassed a fifth of the planet and its population.
In the end, what we remember are the stories about people. Whether it is Homer’s Iliad of the Trojan War, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars, the real story is about the people, not the gear they carried. A unit marked rifle was someone’s way of saying ‘This is mine!’ – which, one hundred years later, is an invitation to listen to their story. The stuff is just a way to get there. This website is about those stories.
Copyright and Getting It Right
We try to give credit to every writer, artist and photographer whose work appears on this site, including works and photographs in the public domain. This website is the work of thousands of man-hours of effort, not to mention investments in books, equipment and software. Full copyright is owned by David Gadbois, EFD LLC, unless stated otherwise.
Every word on this website was written by me. If I have gotten something wrong, or if I have used content that you own, please use the Contact Form and we will fix what needs to be fixed.
Permissions
Permission is granted to link to Enfield-Stuff.com or any page within it. You are welcome to download for your own personal use. You are *not* granted permission to hotlink to any image within the site nor copy/paste swaths of text into your own site, presentation or materials and pass it off as your own work. You are welcome to “fair use” of the information within the site so long as you reference the source; please use “Enfield-Stuff.com” or "Enfield-Stuff - A website about Lee-Enfield rifles and the men who carried them" as part of the title, as well as the URL.
Sources
Whether you love ‘em or hate ‘em, almost every page on this website has footnotes. (You can blame Jan Morris’ Pax Britannica trilogy, a three-volume history of the British Empire, for the idea). The purpose of the footnotes is: (1) to give credit to the original writers, artists and photographers that we relied on and (2) to point to our sources and give you, the reader, the opportunity to read that same information and draw your own conclusions and, if so inclined, follow your own path to wherever your interests take you.
None of this would have been possible without the patience, understanding and support of my wife, Kerry. For which I am very, very grateful.