Hi Tim,
I think you just made a better case for it being a trench weapon. A sailor probably could have borrowed a drill from the ship's carpenter, and he would have had time for craftsmanship. What he wouldn't have had (necessarily) was surplus semi-random bits of metal lying around to stud his club.
Ditto for your islander. He's got the time for craftsmanship, but would be missing the industrially made metal. This thing is pretty crude.
A publican--possible, but again, he probably would have had the tools lying around. If he was that scared of his customers, he probably would have the tools to replace the bar fixtures, and this suggests he couldn't afford a blunderbuss or something similarly scary.
A WWI soldier? He's going to have some surplus metal lying around, either from looting or in surplus around the trench. And he is going to need to make a functional weapon. However, he's going to be missing the proper tools, though, so he's going to have to use whatever he has within his duty area.
Of course, we could be talking about something made by a gangster.
My 0.00000000002 pence,
F
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