Spotlight > Whistle Maker by Country > United Kingdom > Lilly > 011 Lilly Long Mouth GSW, Special Edition
Whistory
Any time highlighting a whistle when it has not been seen before (monotypic ) , makes it hard to avoid words like remarkable and stunning and yet here it may be fitting. It just goes to show you that whistle makers in production of whistles or otherwise, did not always ‘follow the rules’ or stick to just an average look or design for production, sometimes they ‘went outside the box’.
B. Lilly Was the Probable Maker
B. Lilly remains enigmatic. The reason is that Lilly manufactured whistles, but also contracted other companies to make whistles for them such as Yates, Ward. Whistles then must be compared to differentiate who actually made them. Many manufacturers did not stamp their name on the whistles they made as a rule.
This being the case, this whistle not only is unusual in design, but it does not have any stamps on it. Some comparisons then are in order to identify the maker.
The Whistle Itself by Comparison Matches B. Lilly Whistles
This GSW matches very closely to Lilly in several aspects, a manufacturer from the UK. However the mouthpiece is very unusual at 35mm long. Not only that, but you can see that a lot of thought went into the design of the mouthpiece.
In fact, it is unusually long by any whistle standards and as of this revision has not been seen in any other whistles. When we do a comparison of a known stamped whistle by Lilly it matches in all ways except the mouthpiece. The top cap and loop, the diameter of the body, also the length of the body and the material all match Lilly. Thus we are assigning this whistle to B. Lilly.
This is really an unusual mouthpiece for any manufacturer. But to find it made by Lilly is even more interesting. They usually farmed out whistles to others, yet, they did manufacture their own whistles.
Whistle Classification
| Category | tube shaped |
| Order | B. Lilly |
| Type | general service |
| Class | brass |
| Sub Class | extended mouth |
Whistle Archeology
B. Lilly history is obscure and complicated by the fact that they also contracted out whistles besides manufacturing them.
Whistology
Full picture – 4.2 in. 106mm
First picture – the long mouthpiece – 35mm
After the amazing mouthpiece, we move on to the top loops. Lilly typically used a smaller loop that is a signature for them and comparatively a shorter body. The stamped Lilly design on the body of the second GSW is one of few known to exist and is here at the Whistle Gallery reference collection.
This would serve to identify this most unusual whistle as made by B. Lilly and Sons circa 1870-80. The diaphragm would place it more towards 1890.
Paired pictures – the stamped Lilly is on the left, the long mouthpiece on the right. You can see that the loops match perfectly.
We’ll see that matching up entirely to Lilly is:
- Body length
- Body width
- Cast loop
- Top cap shape
- Rectangular extension to the partition passing through the center of the disc — both whistles
(See: Collecting Police Whistles, pages 91-92)
We will take a moment to compare windows of which match very well to the known Lilly.
Conclusions
A mono-typical whistle. This description is done under a special edition. If another surfaces, the status will change from mono-typical to production status. The extended mouth is close to unique in design. The features otherwise indicate Lilly made this whistle.
TWG
Posted April 5, 2013
Revised November 22, 2018
Revised August 15, 2020
Revised October 11, 2020
Revised February 12, 2021
Revised February 13, 2022
Bibliography:
Reference collection Whistle Gallery
