Long Cecil is a cannon built in the workshops of the De Beers mining company in Kimberley for use by the British in the Siege of Kimberley during the Second Boer War.
Construction
The defenders at Kimberley had only the relatively small RML 2.5 inch Mountain Gun at their disposal and therefore lacked a weapon that could effectively match those fielded by the surrounding Boers.[3]
George Labram and Edward Goffe, Chief Draughtsman at the mine, reviewed the limited number of textbooks and publications on gunmaking that were available in Kimberley. From this and calculations on what it would require to build a gun capable of firing a shell over 7600 m, they decided that it was feasible to build the gun with the materials at hand.[2]
Construction of the gun began on 26 December 1899 with rough-turning of the barrel,[1] but some of the tools required for