W J Rawkins-Military Uniform Bookseller and Bookseller.

 Hello There! I have recently heard that Mr W J Rawkins has sadly passed away a few days before Christmas.

Mr Rawkins owned a military Book shop in St Giles Street and later in Pottergate in Norwich. As a teenage wargamer I would visit the Games Room in Elm Hill and W J Rawkins bookshop with my wargaming friend, John.

We were both into WW II and Napoleonics and 'Rawkins' was the highlight of the day. In the days before the internet you had few alternatives. You could either write off for a catalogue from Hersant Books or go to Salute, at Kensington Town Hall, once a year.

Among the fantastic range of military books on offer were a substantial range of Napoleonic books. With these were a series of softback pamphlets on uniforms of the Austrian army, The Duchy of Warsaw and many Confederation troops. The amount of research that went into these was very large indeed. In the eighties the Osprey books on French Line and Light infantry and the first publications on the Austrian army, from Osprey, had not arrived yet.

Rawkins publications offered all you needed to know about the subject with an easily remembered tall text.

Since then the books shops have now long gone and I discovered W J Rawkins again on the internet under 'The History Book Man'. The publications had now been greatly expanded and the subjects covered had expanded to over twenty volumes.The French Regiments Etrange and Confederation troops now included many different volumes and they were all available on CD.

As I find it difficult to read directly of the screen I have to print off each publication but you can see that each CD can come with a self adhesive label. These CDs are completely revised and now have many colour illustrations as well.

I cannot put into words the amount of research that has gone into these works. I feel he has made a massive contribution to the wargaming world and I hope his work will again be available.

I would like to send my condolances to his family and hope they are not hindered in their mourning by the situation caused by the pandemic.