British Naval Officers’ Swords in the 18th Century

BEFORE THE STANDARDISATION OF naval swords after 1805, the British Royal Navy officer had great leeway as to what type of edged weapon he carried whilst on board ship. During the mid and latter part of the 17th Century, the traditional gentleman’s rapier was abandoned by British naval officers in favour of short, hunting type hangers and cutlass-type swords. They were based on cutlasses and hangers issued to ordinary seaman but were decorated in a more elaborate way, with chiselled decoration to both pommels and guards and some manufactured with silver hilts and corresponding scabbard mounts.

These short swords were far more practical whilst fighting amongst the rigging and confined space of a ship’s crowded deck. Many contemporary paintings show British naval officers carrying these swords.

In keeping with fashions of the day, British naval officers sometimes carried a dress sword for more formal occasions and these were normally based on contemporary civilian and military smallswords that included a boat shell hilt with pas d’âne and a colichemarde (hollow-ground) blade. In some rare examples, the smallswords might carry nautical motifs to the hilt.

By the late-18th Century, the hunting-type hanger was dropped in favour of an infantry sword with slotted guard. Many of these exhibit an anchor inset into the guard or engraved to the ovoid or rounded pommel.  Blades tended to be manufactured in countries such as Germany (where they were cheaper to buy) and exported to England with the sword fittings e.g. guard, grip and scabbard, produced in small workshops in England, where the sword would be finally assembled.

In 1786, the British Army formally adopted a regulation pattern sword for infantry officers. It was natural that British naval officers would copy this style.  The cut and thrust blade was straight with either a “beaded” or “fiveball” hilt and cushion pommel.  A gilt brass “cigar band” with engraved anchor was sometimes placed in the centre

of a ribbed ivory or ebony grip.  Some examples also have a cut-out anchor inserted to the centre of the forward guard.  Blades were decorated with engraved motifs, including royal crown, coat of arms, martial trophies, stands of arms and scrolling foliage.  It is actually rare to find an example with purely nautical designs to the blade as most blades were decorated in a generic British “military” style that didn’t specify either the Army or Navy branch of service.  It is possible that the original owners of the swords found it difficult to source “dedicated” naval blades and opted for the Army version which was in plentiful supply, courtesy of such German importers as J.J. (John Justus) Runkel, who supplied pre-decorated and plain blades to the English sword making trade.

Where the blades do feature naval decoration, these can include the royal crown, cypher, coat of arms and a seated Britannia, but in place of the typical infantry officer figure brandishing his sword, we might find anchors and sea beasts.  Decorated naval blades from this period are rare and most do not exhibit any specific naval decoration, but are still perfectly correct. It is only when we move into the late 1820’s that all blades become strictly naval in their decoration.

Many of these officers’ swords were also decorated in blue and gilt in keeping with contemporary British infantry and cavalry officers’ swords. The blade was sheathed in a patent leather and gilt-brass-mounted scabbard.

Other sword types include those with a S-Bar hilt with an anchor in cartouche and the more common stirrup-hilted sabre that copied the British 1796 Pattern Light Cavalry Officer’s Sword. They also frequently feature an engraved anchor (known as a fouled anchor because it has become enmeshed by a trailing cable) to the hilt langet and very occasionally the anchor is applied as a raised, separate cartouche, sometimes in silver.  By the end of the 18th Century, many Royal Navy officers’ sword hilts also had cartouches to the langets that featured a fouled anchor with royal crown placed above.

© Harvey Withers Military Publishing, 2024

Taken from The British Sword – From 1600 to the Present Day – An Illustrated History by Harvey J S Withers – 12,000 full colour photographs – 884 pages

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