Shotley Bridge swordmakers

[kronckew]

colchemarde blades were not necessarily hollow ground on three sides of a triangle, they were small swords where the initial forte section was very noticeably wider to allow for a strong parry, like the one below. some had a noticeable central ridge, some had forged in fullers, some had shallow triangular x-sections with a 'hollow ground' fuller on one side, flat on the other two. some had flat hexagon shapes. simply put in other words, they varied in x-section like any other sword...

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by kronckew

colchemarde blades were not necessarily hollow ground on three sides of a triangle, they were small swords where the initial forte section was very noticeably wider to allow for a strong parry, like the one below. some had a noticeable central ridge, some had forged in fullers, some had shallow triangular x-sections with a 'hollow ground' fuller on one side, flat on the other two. some had flat hexagon shapes. simply put in other words, they varied in x-section like any other sword...

That is interesting. I note also a false hollow form with a different x section. However for the discussion we cannot find any x form Colichimarde or anything resembling it made at the Shotley Bridge Factory. The reference material confuses (I suspect) hollow ground edges on flat blades, with hollow swords of the Colichemarde form.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

To re examine or simply have this note as an anchor on thread I have a precis of the Hollow Blade Co. fiasco from Wike Quote"

Hollow Sword Blade Company
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Hollow Sword Blades Company was a British joint-stock company founded in 1691 for the manufacture of hollow-ground rapiers by a goldsmith, Sir Stephen Evance. The company ceased manufacturing swords in 1702 following the suicide of its founder and was purchased by a syndicate of businessmen who used the corporate identity of the company to operate as a bank. At this time the Bank of England held a monopoly by act of parliament as the only organisation permitted to operate as a bank in England, so anyone wishing to carry out banking operations had to do so by devious means. The company was used as a stepping stone to the foundation of the South Sea Company which set out to supplant the Bank of England as banker to the government.

Foundation.
Sir Stephen Evance was a goldsmith whose father had been born in New England, but who had set up a business in Lombard Street in London. Evance did not confine his interests simply to metalwork, but had attempted salvage work with a diving machine, lead mining, mineral prospecting in Canada, a fishing enterprise off the coast of Ireland in partnership with Sir James Houblon (one of the founders of the Bank of England) and a draper named Samuel Ongley.

In 1691 war between France and England interrupted the importation of hollow ground swords from France which had become popular weapons in England and a business opportunity presented to manufacture the swords in England. Evance arranged for Huguenot metalworkers to move to Britain to manufacture the swords and obtained a charter of corporation as the 'Governor and Company for Making Hollow Sword Blades in England', granted 13 October 1691. The company obtained premises at Shotley Bridge in Durham. Granting of the charter plus two patents was on condition the applicants loaned the government £50,000, which sum was provided by Evance and Sir Francis Child in August 1692. Evance was appointed the first governor of the company, Peter Reneu the deputy governor, assistants Francis Tissen, Matthew Evans, John Carter, John Holland, Abraham Dashwood, John Samford, Robert Peter, Thomas Evans, Peter Justice, John Reneu, William Reneu, John Baker. The corporation had power to purchase land and issue stock to unlimited value.

The company manufactured swords and by virtue of the charter had power to seize imported foreign hollow swords. Evance became an excise commissioner and succeeded Childs as jeweller to King William III. However, after the king's death in 1702 the business failed and Evance committed suicide. One of the swordsmiths employed by the company, Herman Mohll continued to manufacture swords at Shotley in his own right under the name Herman Mohll and son, founding a company which continued with a change of name to Mole in 1832. The company was purchased by Wilkinson Sword in 1922.

Banking operations[edit]
The Sword Blade Company was sold and moved to Birchin Lane in London, to the premises of its new company secretary, John Blunt, a scrivener (lawyer specialising in business and financial contracts). The sale was probably arranged by Francis Child, whose son was a banker and business associate of Blunt. The new Governor was Elias Turner, a goldsmith with a shop in Lombard street under the sign of the Fleece, who provided both finance and experience. The deputy Governor was Jacob Sawbridge, who came from a business family and who had a small estate in Canterbury. The fourth partner, George Caswall, came from Leominster which his family had represented as MP for generations. His father had been Mayor, and Receiver of the land tax for Monmouthshire. Caswall was a partner with another goldsmith, Brassey, specialising in finance and trading securities. Daniel Defoe described them: "Sawbridge is as cunning as Caswall is bold, and the reserve of the one with the openness of the other makes a complete Exchange Alley man. Turner ... acts in concert..and makes together a complete triumvirate of thieving". (Exchange Alley was the place where stock trading and other financial transactions took place in London.) The objective of the partnership was to break into the business monopolised by the Bank of England, which was handling and providing loans for the government.

In 1703 the company purchased some of the Irish estates forfeited under the Williamite settlement in counties Mayo, Sligo, Galway, and Roscommon. They also bought the forfeited estates of the Earl of Clancarty (McCarthy) in counties Cork and Kerry and of Sir Patrick Trant in counties Kerry, Limerick, Kildare, Dublin, King and Queen's counties (Offaly and Laois). Further lands in counties Limerick, Tipperary, Cork and other counties, formerly the estate of James II were also purchased, also part of the estate of Lord Cahir in county Tipperary. In June 1703 the company bought a large estate in county Cork, confiscated from a number of attainted persons and other lands in counties Waterford and Clare. However within about 10 years the company had sold most of its Irish estates. Francis Edwards, a London merchant, was one of the main purchasers.

The recent conquest of Ireland by England had resulted in the confiscation of land from Jacobites which had been given to members of the army. Blunt was amongst others who campaigned that the property should instead have been sold to defer government expenses, and an act of parliament was passed cancelling the grants of land which instead were to be sold. The Sword Blade company now used its charter powers to own property to purchase land to the value of £200,000 with anticipated revenues of £20,000 per year, or 10%. To pay for this, the company used a trick which the Bank of England had employed in its own creation. The Hollow Sword Blades Company issued shares, which it was also entitled to do under its charter. It offered to exchange its own shares at a nominal value of £100 for £100 of government debt issued by the army paymaster. The government was willing to accept its own debt as payment for the land, so no cash money was required for the transactions. The army debt could at that time only be sold on the open market at a rate of £85 per £100 of face value, so this offered a way for holders to realise a better price. The land remained the property of the company, and the company would pay dividends on the shares from its rental income.

The deal was negotiated with the treasury by Blunt and their legal advisor, Lake and agreed on 1 June 1704. Once the debt was cancelled, the government no longer had to pay interest upon it, which it had been doing at 7.5%. However, it also required a 'sweetener' in the form of receiving a new loan of £20,000 at 5% as part of the deal, secured against Royal shares in Cornish tin.

Before announcing the offer, the Sword Blade Syndicate made full advantage of the anticipated rise in value of army debt, by buying as much as it could privately beforehand. This was then sold as the price rose once the general market realised there was an offer available to trade in the debt at its full value.

The Sword Blade company also branched out into providing mortgages for other would be purchasers of Irish land, accepting cash deposits and issuing its own notes. This came to the attention of the Bank of England, who advised the treasury that their own monopoly to act as a bank was being infringed. The treasury took no action. In part, the government recognised that it had a good deal it did not wish to spoil. There was also a legal complication, that the Bank act protected it against any other company being set up by act of parliament to operate as a bank. In the case of the sword company charter, although the steps to enact its charter had been commenced, they had never actually been completed in parliament.

The Bank of England charter was due to expire in 1710, and they were concerned to arrange its renewal. Others, however, continued to lobby parliament not to do so, and a new syndicate had formed, offering to take on funding of the latest loan required by government. The Bank responded by dropping its interest rate to underbid the competition, and succeeded in renewing its charter until 1732, with more strictly drawn terms to prevent others operating as banks.

Further complications faced the Sword Blade company, as title to land in Ireland began to be disputed by relatives of dispossessed Jacobites and others claiming to have bought from the initial beneficiaries of the first cancelled land distribution. The matter was settled by an act of parliament in 1708 setting a time limit on further claims, but by then the company stock had fallen to £55 per nominal £100 issued. As some consolation, pressure was also mounting on the Bank of England from an increasingly distressed government seeking new ways to raise money."Unquote.

In Conclusion It would seem that the situation on Hollow Ground Swords ... The Colichemarde type was in fact a ruse gone viral... The swords were probably never manufactured in England at all although some finishing processes are plausible. The whole idea was to manipulate the licence for greater private gain in supplanting the bank of England in South Sea Bubble operations which would have included such distasteful but highly profitable business as slavery. Shotley Bridge would have been advised to go along with the story since these power brokers in the City held powerful sway in the administration of immigration from Europe of specialists, sword workers and other customs avoidance matters perhaps such as sword blades from Germany? And getting people out of jail!! Mohll?

[urbanspaceman]

There is a vexing question that I am struggling with - hence my recent silence - and that is simply this: did they intend to produce hollow blades, then concentrate on military supply; or was it a deliberate façade from the start?
I am presently studying the overall political situation in Britain from 1680 onwards in the hope it might shed some light on why they began the project in the first place.
There were certainly many petitions and requests being bandied about in the mid 1600s regarding manufacturing hollow blades; how did any of them intend to achieve a viable output without the grinding machine? They were in no better a position in Hounslow at the time, yet many attempts were made to set up a hollow blade production facility there. Hmmm.

[Jim McDougall]

Hey Keith,
These are some vexing questions indeed, and now that you and Ibrahiim are 'on the case' I think we can get somewhere. Despite the apparent lack of community interest on this topic here, it seems that has been an inherent posture in the arms community at large for too many years. Little has been really done on this for 70+ years beyond simply conveying old material over again.

In my opinion, and writing off the cuff here, the 'Hollow Sword Co.' was created, more as a front for banking enterprises and real estate speculation. There was a good degree of interest in the developing new forms of rapier blades and fencing forms, which I think was a genuine interest at first. The Hounslow enterprise had ended after the end of the civil wars, and it seems the blade production had gone to London/Birmingham. However, these centers were plagued with notably poorly regarded blade quality.
The descendants of some of the Hounslow families were recruited to establish facilities at Shotley Bridge, where the Derwent river and standing grist mills could be converted to blade producing mills.

Under the guise of this, the Hollow Blade Co. began, and I believe were indeed intending to produce such rapier blades, however geopolitical unrest both overseas and with the Jacobite issues resulted in the clear need for supplies of military weapons. I think that there was actual production in degree, but that much of the volume was 'salted' with imported blades from Germany via Holland. Much of this stock coming in seems represented by the shipment Mohll was caught with, a number of such blades, and also of hangers.

The reason the banking set up was contrived was that the Bank of England held a monopoly on banking and loans etc. The syndicated speculation in real estate in trade in the South Seas (South America) and confiscated Irish properties in the political troubles of the times, was filtered through the 'sword company'.
The actual mills in my understanding used grindstones converted from existing ones there already. In the lists of Shotley Bridge, many of the names show them as 'grinders' as well as proprietors. There does seem to have been actual production in addition to the furbishing of imported or 'salted' products.

While I have presumed that some of the blades were marked with a 'fox' instead of the German wolf of Solingen products, I have seen the German wolf next to SHOTLEY BRIDG on blades. I think this may be a mix due to the combined German and English workers there so perhaps both existed, just as variants will.

While sword blade production waned with the advent of Birmingham and London in mid 18th century, I believe Shotley probably continued with cutlery and such sundry products into the final days in the 19th c,
Whether some sword blades were either produced or fitted there in these later times is hard to say. It does not seem official records recognize Shotley as an entity active in such enterprise so possibly other business records and ledgers might have them showing what their function was.

Most of this is simply reiterating what Ibrahiim has explained in much greater detail in the previous post.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Salaam Jim,

My concern about the Shotley Bridge factory is that no blade appears to exist from there with a Fox (bushy tail variety) So far as l know it was a Samuel Harvey Mark from Birmingham only.

Shotley only appears to have used the Running Wolf. The Passau stick version.

Regarding Jacobite weapons...The Shotley Swordmakers would all have been arrested and probably executed had they provided blades to the Jacobite cause marked SHOTLEY BRIDGE. Newcastle was heavily garrisoned and immediate action would have ended the Derwent production.

Mohl being in the know... purchased cheap unfinished military blades in Solingen for refining at Shotley and we see grinders and engraver employed there...probably linked to London Gentlemens Outfitters providing swords to rich city men. MOHLL was key to all of that.

Great pressure was being encountered with the demise of ordinary blades and the Solingen mass production of Colichemarde ..a term we do not hear in Shotley evidence...We only hear the term Hollow Blades and it is unclear what they meant by that phrase. lf there were swords with tri angular blade form at Shotley we have no examples...So as to escape this timewarp...and stay modern in the industry specialists simply left: l think this was an added reason the unit dwindled and coincided with the rise to power in England of German George.

The real reason, however, may well have been the corrupt development around the skulduggery of The Hollow Sword Co. This unsavoury lot were up to their necks in the dirty business of South Sea Co activity and the rich pickings of slavery..No doubt also the lucrative international trade in Ivory for billiard ball and piano keys !...

As you say the idea was to supplant the Bank of England thus this was a huge enterprise..so when it collapsed the repercussions must have also dislocated Shotley Bridge activity and the Blade makers would have started to look elsewhere...

A short resurgence in flat blades was followed by demise but eventually Birmingham and Germany pulled most of the workers away...Cutlery may have only served as a brief respite but the end of the Napoleonic wars may have finally put a lid on Shotley Bridge production.

Has anyone seen a Colichimarde machine...? I am intrigued to see what that looked like.

[urbanspaceman]

I am in complete agreement Ibrahiim: all blades going for military use, regardless of politics or religion, would not have been marked at all.
I need to find out why the two Londoners (Parsons and Justice), half of the original syndicate of four, were involved in an armoury developed up North. As I said, there were numerous previous attempts to set up a hollow blade manufactory both in London and Hounslow.
The syndicate existed prior to 1685: Charles II helped these two Londoners, along with Sanford from Newcastle (and probably Carnforth), to bring Henekels and Hoppe from Oxford, and Dell from Hounslow, up to SB. This syndicate of four (Dell had become one of them) then brought the 19 families over at James II's behest in '87. That same year they petitioned the king to grant them exclusive right to produce hollow blades using a new milling machine; but as far as James II was concerned they were not brought over to produce hollow blades – that had been the wish of Charles II – James wanted broadswords for his ever growing standing army: granted by parliament and camped on Hounslow Heath. In fact, the exclusive right to make hollow blades was never actually signed by King James.
Regardless of that, work had already begun at SB, and the new arrivals were bound by a six year contract to the syndicate, which eventually (in '88) officially leased land from William Johnson, who owned the estate and had previously allowed the adaption of his corn-mill there to produce blades; hence the abandoned giant corn mill-stone Ibrahiim. What we have to remember is that those two Germans - Henekels and Hoppe - had previously moved from Hounslow to Oxford and began work on behalf of the king using a converted corn-mill, which is essentially what they did at SB. I think the new arrivals spent their first year building homes and getting established, alongside helping out at the new works.
King William 1st finally granted the charter to a reformed syndicate in 1691, and the Hollow Sword Blade Company was certified. At least six years since the original syndicate was formed, and with new syndicate member Peter Reneau now in charge at SB. That same year, Mohll, Schimmelbush, Groats, Krantz and Voes rented a premises in SB and set up a grinding, polishing and finishing mill. Adam Ohlig (the blade forger) built Cutler's Hall; and John Sanford (previously of the syndicate) leased a corn-mill at Lintzford (up-river from SB and near Blackhall) to make blades.
At this point I suspect Sir Stephen Evance and his new partners had begun to realise the potential of this newly formed company; because despite all things being very well established, there appears to have been no attempt to employ a hollows grinding machine. I think it was better to let SB produce common or garden blades and have the specialist blades smuggled in from Solingen. I am certain that the great political weight exerted by this new syndicate/company was the reason Mohll was released without charge despite being found red-handed smuggling blades on a Jacobite ship.