C.1850 British Life Guards Officer’s Dress Sword

BOTH THE LIFE GUARDS’ REGIMENTS (1st and 2nd) carried a lightweight sword for evening or levee wear. The sword was based on the 1796 Pattern Heavy Cavalry Officer’s Dress Sword with some variations, especially in the hilt design.   The principle of a gilt brass, boat shell hilt is still there, but some versions display a folding guard and distinctive, vase-shaped and flat-topped tang buttons, reminiscent of the military courtswords worn in Prussia at that time.

Some examples have a scalloped shell at the end of the hilt and feature both single and double quillons combined with plain or elaborately decorated blades. The black leather and brass-mounted scabbards can also have unusually long locket hooks. The Household Cavalry regiments were very flexible in their interpretation of regulation designs and it is virtually impossible to precisely date or assign these swords to any specific Household Cavalry regiment, although contemporary military paintings of officers in the regiment show that they appear to have emerged around 1820 and lasted until the 1870’s, when the 1874 Pattern State Sword became the universal sword for Life Guards, both for Dress and Undress.

There do not appear to be any official regulations covering the introduction of these swords and they seem to have been brought into the Lifeguard regiments on a purely personal level and sourced from a wide number of sword makers, no doubt receiving unwritten “official” approval over the passage of time.

© 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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