FOLLOWING REPEATED COMPLAINTS within the Royal Navy about the inadequacy of naval cutlasses, allied with a series of unfavourable stories in the press that spoke about the unnecessary deaths of British sailors due to blades bending and snapping, a new pattern of cutlass was deemed to be required. On the 6th May 1887, the Secretary for War made a statement in the House of Commons publicly criticising the effectiveness of the cutlasses issued to Royal Navy sailors and blaming a number of senior officers for allowing this to happen. They in turn, blamed the Admiralty for these failures who themselves blamed the Ordnance Department for not undertaking sufficient testing of cutlasses.
It was obviously time for a new pattern of cutlass and in the true tradition of the British Army and Navy, a Committee was set up to look into the matter. It was decided to reduce the length of existing cutlasses from 29 inches to 27 inches and to introduce a new straight blade of just over 28 inches.
For the first time, the bowl hilt was manufactured in bright steel, in contrast to previous cutlasses that had hilts of black painted cast iron. The edge of the hilt was also turned down to avoid fraying the uniform. The scabbard was leather with steel mounts in contrast to the traditional use of brass.
Due to the history of repeated complaints concerning the strength of cutlass blades, this new pattern was tested on a specially designed striking machine that was meant to finally gauge and reject inferior blades before they were issued to seamen.
© Harvey Withers Military Publishing, 2024