TOPIC:

It’s worth considering how a private purchase arm became Union of SA property, and one common way is this:
At the start of the Second World War, the South African government remember vividly what had happened in the country at the start of the Great War, namely the Boer rebellion. There was a huge program of confiscation of large numbers of fire arms of military calibre, to form a strategic reserve but also to deplete the civilian population of arms. In1945 these were returned to their owners. The program applied to tens of thousands of rifles, but also to pistols.
So the broad arrow-in-U could date from 1939 and diamond-in-U from 1945.

Thank you.
Very interesting.

And regarding the grips, I now believe they look too new to have been the original grips. The question is however, would this revolver originally have had standard black Webley grips?

As the revolver was purchased from a retailer in Taunton, West Somerset, there is a chance that it was taken to South Africa by a member of the the 25th (West Somerset) Company, 7th Bn. I.Y.

Below is a photograph of Lieutenant Henry Thomas Stanley's troop taken at Taunton prior to embarkation on 7 March 1900. Stanley was killed in action at Hekpoort, on 16th September 1900.

As your gun is a Webley & Scott Mk IV, I would have expected it to have been supplied with the standard black vulcanite grips.




..

KR
As regards the grips, these were made of a chemically-hardened black rubber which was very brittle. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebonite
These were the days before plastics. Particularly prone to crack at the bottom where a pin comes from the frame to stop the grip swivelling. For this reason you will often see Webley revolvers with replacement grips or a big chip at the bottom; and spare original grips are very pricey.
It’s possible to buy reproduction black grips,
handgungrips.com/shop/webley-mk-ii-revol...ip-black-w46-4107-1/
but the replacement wooden ones are part of its history.

KR
Your Webley Mk.IV would originally have had grips identical with those illustrated here:

Made of Vulcanite and with an impressed checkered finish; very comfortable in the hand.
I suppose it is possible that W@S could have supplied a private purchase revolver with wood grips on special order. If so, they would have made a better job of it than those your Webley exhibit.
My logic for supposing that your Webley Mk.IV COULD have gone to SA as part of an Imperial Yeomanry officer's equipment is fairly plain. Even before Neville C contributed the group pic of 25th Coy., I.Y.,
it is not beyond the realm of possibility to suppose that a newly commissioned IY officer would rush off to a local gunsmith to purchase a Government pattern revolver. Of course, we will never know unless the Gunsmith's order book survives.
IL.