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Brief history... T. Ketland & Co. is Thomas Sr., a very successful B'ham gunmaker. He started in business around 1760, expanded into the export market around 1790, died in 1816. His business was carried on until bankrupt in 1821.
W. Ketland is TK Sr's eldest son. He was originally a partner with his father and William Walker. He petitioned to liquidate his part in the firm in 1800. The partnership was dissolved in 1801. He died in 1804 but the business carried on to at least 1831. The story about an earlier W. Ketland gunmaker, going back to the 1740s (Gardner says 1715), is a fantasy. The directory dates are 1808 to 1831 but I believe W. Ketland was trading under that name as early as the middle of 1801 and perhaps as early as the end of 1800.
The Philadelphia Ketlands are 2nd son Thomas Jr. and John. Thomas Jr. resided in Philadelphia from 1789 to 1815. John died there in 1800. They never made guns - there are NO American, Ketland-made guns. They were merchant princes, not mechanics and arms were only a small part of their business. Its a very big story - one I've been working on, off and on, for about 25 years.
DeWitt and I are currently cooperating on a monograph on the Ketlands - with DeWitt concentrating on their Ordnance contracts while I do the civilian/American end. It will probably come out in about a year, perhaps a bit more. I will be going back to the UK early next year to follow up some leads and meet with my friends there that are helping with the research. Also, there is an article, with the general outline of the story, coming out in Man at Arms though I am not sure when, perhaps as soon as January.

Joe Puleo

Thats an excellent volunteer musket. The problem with further identification of the "rack" numbers is that the organizations weren't "regular" and weren't required to mark their arms in a consistent manner. (Actually the Ordnance largely stopped the practice of marking muskets about this time.) All of these arms were privately purchased, in that the landowner who raised a unit from his tenants or the organization itself (like the "Inner Temple Volunteers") bought the arms. As they became antiquated, many ended up decorating the walls of stately homes. There are quite a lot of these muskets, very rarely converted and usually in good condition since the volunteers didn't see active. In the past 50 years several large lots have been sold off... I remember seeing a batch of 25 muskets with numbered bayonets for sale in London in 1968. In fact, a group of volunteer muskets were in a Christies sale last week. I once had a pair of 1796 sabers, two of which I selected from a batch of 10 in a London shop. All were marked with numbers and letters. I also had a similar musket, India pattern but .69 caliber (much like the earlier .69 caliber artillery and light infantry carbine) that had "50" engraved on the bow of the trigger guard. Of course, at the time I thought it was an "officer's fuzee" from the 50th foot - that was a good 45 years ago. Since then I've learned better.

About all we could hope to do is associate a particular style of marking with a particular volunteer unit but few people were actually interested in the markings when these "musket hoards" were broken up and working backward now would be an uphill struggle.