Ethnographic Arms & Armour

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-   -   Shotley Bridge swordmakers (http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=23157)

Peter Hudson 15th April 2024 03:34 AM

Keith I think a visit to The Hawick museum is in order...

Oh by the way I SEE A number of specialists on the web now admitting that the running Fox was applied by Shotley Bridge Sword Makers... even The British Museum!
I focuss on Bewick......and from his expertise as the author of World Quadrupeds and as he was apprenticed to Oley as an engraver ...and how amazing some of the sword blade animals were ...On looking at Bewick s sketches of Foxes and in fact Dogs it occured to me that this could be where it all started for the Shotley Bridge Running Fox or what we know it as The Bushy Tailed Fox in a bid to differentiate from The Passau Wolf.

Reference your post earlier on the glassware done by Mary Beilby thinking again about the Bewick potential as the originator of Oleys Running Fox..

I have to say that these days finding any reference of Bewick working with Oley at SB is not easy as I think much of the notes on that subject have been erased.. Anyway after about an hour searching I found a short burst at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6007...-h/60075-h.htm at volume 4. but nothing substantial...

There are a few interesting names that appear including the Names of both Belbys and both were in glass production/ decoration as per your post on the glasswork above. In his memoirs Bewick mentions William Harvey an Engraver apprentice of Bewick but who went off to Birmingham ...and I wondered if that was the William Harvey relative of Samuel Harvey SH of Swordmaking fame ....?? The plot thickens...I placed the William Harvey letterhead earlier in this thread and that proves he was a sword maker etc etc..SEE post 53.

Peter Hudson.

Peter Hudson 17th April 2024 12:41 AM

Please see post 53 To this and the information in post 321 above...some clarity...On W. HARVEY HIGH ST. DERITEND, BIRMINGHAM, SWORDMAKER;
and the Conundrum of W.HARVEY who appears there as a swordmaker and with the co incidental same name of an engraver who worked under Bewick etc etc ...
At last I have a clearer idea who this Sword Maker was and it can be seen at https://www.antique-swords.com/v09-1...er-harvey.html what sort of swords he made In a parallel search I also realised that the W Harvey mentioned by Thomas Bewick and who was one of his apprentice engravers is not the same W Harvey... which tidies up that somewhat. Peter Hudson.


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Triarii 17th April 2024 03:49 PM

Ref #310.
Can I clarify something please. Is that third from left an earlier hilt with a later SB blade? The style appears to be mid C17th so-called Hounslow hanger but the discussion indicates its an SB blade?

Thanks.

urbanspaceman 24th April 2024 10:39 AM

miss-match
 
Hello. Yes, it is indeed an old hilt on a new blade, a common occurrence and very confusing at times.
This group of swords were collected by Lord Gort - younger brother of Viscount Gort of famous military history - who lived close by Shotley Bridge in Hamsterly Hall.
I'll pause here because I want to locate some images to post.

urbanspaceman 24th April 2024 10:50 AM

Images
 
2 Attachment(s)
Here are additional images from the Royal Armouries in Leeds showing a Mortuary hilt on one of those first batch of Solingen made blades with a Shotley Bridge script.

urbanspaceman 24th April 2024 11:06 AM

Additional data
 
4 Attachment(s)
Those blades (and there were not a lot of them) were brought by Harmon Mohll at the time of the arrival of the Solingen diaspora in 1687.
They were destined for Jacobite upper classes around northern England.
The 'horseman's' sword was the most common and I have seen a dozen of them (there were more with blades made 'in' SB) during my research.
What has come to light just recently is this:
a couple of years ago I bought a sword casket at auction that had originally come from Wentworth-Woodhouse (the sword - a horseman's sword - is on display in Bamborough Castle). It had a bronze plaque that states Shotley Bridge circa.1680.
The big surprise came when Paul Heatherington (one of my collaborators and a SB resident) finally persuaded a friend of his to sell him his horseman's sword and it came with an exact same casket with an exact same plaque.
This needs thinking about.
BTW
The caskets are superb mahogany and expertly crafted: see images.

Triarii 25th April 2024 01:54 PM

Thankyou.
Wonder if that mortuary style hilt has been re-bladed or they were still in vogue in the 1680s. I thought that in Britain they'd faded out in the 1660s, though were still in use in the area of Germany until the 1680s.

urbanspaceman 25th April 2024 04:12 PM

Mortuary hilts
 
I have no idea when the Mortuary style hilt fell out of fashion.
I have been informed, and I raised this issue on the forum but no-one responded, that Mortuary hilts were made on the Hebridean island of Islay where there had been a blacksmiths armoury for generations. Many Scottish clans were armed by this blacksmiths.
Maybe someone was keen to have this style of hilt and acquired a new one but it is far more likely that it was a family heirloom needing a new blade.

Jim McDougall 26th April 2024 05:32 PM

Well noted Keith! and the idea of 'slippers' mounting hilts on Islay is pretty exciting! I have wondered where to discover more on this as I have a keen interest in the Isles. As we know, the 'mortuary' (a Victorian collectors 'catch' term) was actually a hilt style in use early in the 17th, before the death of Charles I, whose likeness on many of these was proposed as the source of that term.

In most cases, popular hilt styles did not suddenly 'go out of fashion' as suggested in some literature. With tradition, styles and fashion tended to predominate in 'periods' (another vague historical delineation) and often continued in favor contemporary to other forms supplanting the forms.

The case you note of old hilts being mounted with more modern blades was actually common, as well as vice versa, heirloom blades in newer hilts.
While fashion of course prevails popularly, tradition is much stronger and much part of the ethos and honor held by the arme blanche.

urbanspaceman 26th April 2024 06:48 PM

Sword casket
 
It was battering my brain working out why, and who, and where, so I want to present some facts regarding the provenance of these two identical caskets.
Obviously made some considerable time after the Germans brought those blades into Shotley Bridge in 1687 as they have estimated the date as: circa.1680.
My casket was made for Thomas Wentworth, 1st Marquess of Rockingham (b.1693) South Yorkshire, who's father had apparently inherited the sword (s) from his uncle, 2nd Earl of Stafford, who had been a close friend and supporter of King James II.
The only conclusion I can achieve is that both swords eventually belonged to the above Thomas Wentworth and/or his family.
It remains puzzling why one sword and casket should end up back in Shotley Bridge, and the other remain in the Wentworth-Woodhouse mansion until the mid.1960s when the sword was given to the Royal Armouries in nearby Leeds and the casket sold in an estate sale but remaining locally until I bought it recently.
The reason I have devoted this effort in sourcing the history is because it indicates distinctly how so much reverence was attached to these swords that expensive caskets were commissioned many years later to put them on display in the mansion house.
Of course, the swords may have remained in hiding long after the above and until any suspicion of Jacobite affiliations in the family had long been forgotten!

urbanspaceman 26th April 2024 11:07 PM

coincidence
 
My collaborator Paul bought his sword and casket from the son of a man called Stafford.
Reference my short history above... that is quite some coincidence!

Jim McDougall 27th April 2024 03:27 AM

Keith, I became interested in the British swords of Hounslow and Shotley about 40 years ago, and while I was able to plow through most of the known published esoterica on these areas of sword making in England, between the 'lore' and huge gaps......overall this was simply a huge mystery.

There it remained, and the mention of either of these centers or their history was usually brief or virtually cliche'. While some of the venerable arms sages wrote very informative works on these topics, they could only go so far using established material.

Your study on these topics these past years has been UNPARALLELED !
to say the least, and as a native son of Shotley, you have brought this history to the fore, and literally preserved it through your discoveries and remarkably well discerned collection of key examples worthy of any world class museum.

I have been wanting to say this publicly for some time, and wanted to thank you, for putting this history into its proper perspective! well done Keith!

urbanspaceman 27th April 2024 11:05 AM

Response
 
Thank-you Jim... but you failed to mention that without you and Peter mentoring me throughout I may well have fallen at the first hurdle. As it was, I had put the entire project on the back burner, considering it beyond my capabilities, and it was only when the Convid lock-down occurred that I brought it to the fore again. Thank-you once again. You and Peter continue to fly my flag and it is much appreciated.

Jim McDougall 27th April 2024 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by urbanspaceman (Post 290472)
Thank-you Jim... but you failed to mention that without you and Peter mentoring me throughout I may well have fallen at the first hurdle. As it was, I had put the entire project on the back burner, considering it beyond my capabilities, and it was only when the Convid lock-down occurred that I brought it to the fore again. Thank-you once again. You and Peter continue to fly my flag and it is much appreciated.

You bet Keith! it was indeed the 'four'musketeers' !! (not sure which of us was D'Artagnan). Still, you ran point on the research and ESPECIALLY the collecting. You found examples that should be collectively in museum holdings as they totally support the theories that you put forth in entirely revising much of the commonly held lore on Hounslow and Shotley. It has been one of the most exciting and intriguing adventures I have experienced in my lifelong fascination with the history of the sword.
The book is FANTASTIC! and has inspired renewed interest in the Shotley Bridge community where both you and Peter are native sons and have so proudly represented your home.

Peter Hudson 27th April 2024 10:56 PM

The Crown and Crossed Swords.
 
Hello Jim and Keith...

Last week I met Keith for lunch at the famous pub in Shotley Bridge albeit in the section that used to be called Commercial Hotel. The sign outside was changed in the summer of 64 and any flat and painted sign boards were removed...In fact I recall that before that there was a sign still seen on some old fotos of the flat painted name of that part of the hotel The new sign is infact not a bad effort at a pair of swords below a crown but is nothing like the original sign which oddly enough was about 20 yards further down the building above the main pub doors and was two basket hilts below a crown..In this case the items making up the sign were realistic but workshop made sword likenesses but in the form of Basket Hilts. Previous to this date there was another name switch when the name of the property was Commercial Hotel and the other part The Swords. There are no pictures to my knowledge of the original pub sign with the Basket Hilts...Actually a number of other organisations adopted all or part of the Crown and Crossed Swords as company Logos such as The Shotley Bridge Hospital and The Richard Murray Maternity Hospital...and Wilkinson Swords adopted the crossed swords without a crown...Peter Hudson.

urbanspaceman 29th April 2024 04:45 PM

error
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by urbanspaceman (Post 290466)
My collaborator Paul bought his sword and casket from the son of a man called Stafford.
Reference my short history above... that is quite some coincidence!

My apologies for my carelessness; it was the Earl of Strafford not Stafford. Ooops!

Peter Hudson 30th April 2024 02:31 PM

There is an excellent picture of the subject at https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/s.../?mkey=mw06088

urbanspaceman 30th April 2024 06:23 PM

Sword in the picture
 
Hi Peter. Thank-you, a good shot; I will send it to Paul.
Curious sword he is wearing.
I often wonder just how accurate artists were; artistic license prevailing always.


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