The m1804 British naval cutlass

adrian · 12th November 2022, 08:58 PM

Thanks for posting that passage from 'Sea Service Swords', most interesting indeed.

All available swords were to be sent to the Tower for modification. The modified cutlasses were coming into service by the end of March 1841, but before little more than 1000 had been modified and issued a fire at the Tower destroyed large numbers and left the Navy seriously short of weapons, and on 9th November, 1841 it was recommended that 10,000 new cutlasses be ordered.

It indicates that these were being sent to the Tower in quite small batches, taking over ten months to achieve a number of 1,000 that had been modified & returned, that parallels similar practice with small arms modifications. So the aforementioned number of swords & sword blades combined, of 3,647 (contemporaneous quote from an official return of military and naval stores destroyed, an accurate figure and not a vague quantity), quite likely included several small 'batches', some hundreds. Not a large number by any means, unlikely to leave the Navy seriously short of weapons. It is difficult to determine the level of conjecture within that sentence without the inclusion of actual evidence that a large number of cutlasses/naval swords/swords, were destroyed in the Tower fire, which should ideally be quoted or referenced, especially if there is contrary evidence which can bring confusion. Does the book include a reference/citation for that sentence?

Drawing from research into the muskets of this period is a 'similar' passage in a very well know and excellent standard reference on British Military Firearms, by H.L. Blackmore, with, arguably, unparalleled access to Ordnance records, is written, ‘280,000 stand of arms, including most of the new percussion arms, were lost’. Simply put this has proved to be inaccurate but, and more importantly, it distorts the degree of significance of this 'event' as regards British Military arms manufacture. Had it been written that 'the Store was nearly depleted as regards serviceable flintlock muskets & only a small number of new percussion arms were lost' then the degree of significance in the mind of the reader is almost the opposite.

I mean no disrespect to the above authors, without such works our hobby would be a very hollow thing, and they are to be thanked & lauded for sharing the results of their long years of dedicated research and for their passion and enthusiasm which many benefit from & share. Scrutiny of a small sentence here & there such as we are doing now would simply not be possible without such important contributions and is a commendation of such works.

CutlassCollector · 13th November 2022, 05:00 PM

It will be interesting to see the new book.

The fact that the navy ordered 10,000 replacements after the fire is well documented and eventually resulted in the new model 1845 cutlass. The existence of cutlasses made with 1796 heavy cavalry blades as a stopgap supports the claim there was a real shortage.
How much of that was a direct result of the fire is now not clear, but as the fleet had shrunk from 840 ships at the height of the Napoleonic wars to around 140 in 1845 the navy should have had large stocks of spare 1804s. So the numbers lost would have had to be high to cause a shortage, unless of course they had previously reduced the total by scrapping some.

Does the book include a reference/citation for that sentence?

There are three references for that sentence - I have never followed them up!

P.R.O. W.O.47/1849 19th April 1841
P.R.O. Adm.2/1648 p.156, 2 December 1841 and W.O. 47/1917 December 1841,p 15881

Jim McDougall · 13th November 2022, 06:31 PM

I mean no disrespect to the above authors, without such works our hobby would be a very hollow thing, and they are to be thanked & lauded for sharing the results of their long years of dedicated research and for their passion and enthusiasm which many benefit from & share. Scrutiny of a small sentence here & there such as we are doing now would simply not be possible without such important contributions and is a commendation of such works.[/QUOTE]

While not toward the general discussion, I'd like to say this is beautifully written Adrian, and something that should always be remembered, that we owe all these authors a great debt of respect for what they got right. The things they had wrong, in whatever degree, were the benchmarks for what we pursued to make right.

adrian · 13th November 2022, 08:08 PM

Thank you for this detailed reply and it is good to read that there are references cited for anyone wanting to research the conclusion in more detail.

The fact that the navy ordered 10,000 replacements after the fire is well documented and eventually resulted in the new model 1845 cutlass. The existence of cutlasses made with 1796 heavy cavalry blades as a stopgap supports the claim there was a real shortage. How much of that was a direct result of the fire is now not clear, but as the fleet had shrunk from 840 ships at the height of the Napoleonic wars to around 140 in 1845 the navy should have had large stocks of spare 1804s. So the numbers lost would have had to be high to cause a shortage, unless of course they had previously reduced the total by scrapping some.

There was a shortage of muskets also at this time, the many hundreds of thousands of spare muskets in Store in 1816 was still quite high in 1829 at about 700,000, by 1838 it was so low that measures were taken to provide more flintlock arms until new muskets in percussion were available. From 1829 nearly 500,000 went to foreign allies. It would make sense that other arms were being included in such transfers, perhaps sea service swords also.

The Board ordered what amounted to over 100,000 P/1842 Muskets after the fire, however the pattern was sealed before the fire & parts arrived from contractors so quickly one gets the impression that their manufacture had been underway already. The fire had no bearing upon this yet is often assumed to be the reason for the new musket pattern.

kronckew · 14th November 2022, 10:01 AM

Excert from The 1842 Rifled and sighted Musket which mentions the fire (debatable as a reason) ... and adds details.
It also mentions the RN Marines being issued percussion muskets in the full dissertation. Sadly, no mention of cutlasses...

================================================== ===============

... the Tower of London fire, which left the British short of infantry arms, and the Crimean War, which erupted in October 1853 and found the British military woefully unprepared to field and equip a large expeditionary force. As a result, the line infantry regiments went off to war carrying a mixture of older Pattern 1839, more newly produced Pattern 1842 and the newest Pattern 1851 muskets. By the end of the war, in March 1856 most of the regiments were no longer armed with smooth bore muskets and were primarily carrying Pattern 1851 and new Pattern 1853 muskets, as well as some rifled and sighted Pattern 1842 muskets.

The adoption of the Pattern 1851 Mini” Rifle meant the end of the smooth bore era in the British military. At the suggestion of Lieutenant Colonel Sandham of the Royal Engineers it was undertaken to upgrade some of the existing stocks of Pattern 1842 muskets by rifling and sighting them. A total of 26,400 of the muskets were modified between April 1852 and April 1855, allowing the newly improved guns to be issued simultaneously with the new production Pattern 1851 Mini” Rifles. The initial supply of rifled and sighted Pattern 1842 muskets were issued to the Royal Marines, but it appears that as the war in the Crimea erupted that additional rifled and sighted Pattern 1842 muskets were issued to line infantry regiments as well.

The improvements were simply to rifle the bore, which slightly increased the nominally .75 bore (actually .753”) to about .758” with four grooves, and to add a Pattern 1851 adjustable backsight. After the adoption of the Pattern 1853 Enfield with three groove rifling, this pattern of rifling was adopted. Thus, earlier upgraded P1842s have four groove bores and later ones have three groove bores.

Although the Rifled & Sighted Pattern 1842 was produced in very small numbers for a rather brief period of time, it was an important stop-gap weapon at a time when Great Britain was in desperate need for modern rifled infantry arms. Even though the small-bore P1853 made it nearly anachronistic by the end of the Crimean War, the gun filled an important role and saw service during one of the toughest campaigns that the British military would endure until the Great War a half-century later.

adrian · 14th November 2022, 07:27 PM

Excert from The 1842 Rifled and sighted Musket which mentions the fire (debatable as a reason) ... and adds details.
It also mentions the RN Marines being issued percussion muskets in the full dissertation. Sadly, no mention of cutlasses...

There is no mention of cutlasses as the Royal Marines did not carry them, they were, in effect, Infantry & were armed in similar fashion. The cutlasses were carried by seamen, along with other small arms. In this period the intent was to arm the Royal Marines with the exact same pattern arms as the infantry, however for a short time the arms shortage of the mid 1850s saw them armed with Altered Pattern 1842 Rifled Muskets.

The Extract from College Hill Arsenal contains several minor inaccuracies that new research corrects. Tim's write ups are first class and this does not disparage his work in any way. Just a couple of quick points: The Army did not fight with a mix of muskets & rifles, only the 4th Division had smoothbores, the other Divisions were armed with P/1851 Rifles until quite late in the war when the P/1853 began to be issued there; this was only battalions at the conflict, 'Home' battalions did have a mix of muskets & rifles though very few were rifles as most of their quota of P/1851 rifles was recalled & went with the fighting troops, muskets of a 'Home' battalion included a mix and the most extreme saw 'Home' Foot Guards with P/1838, P/1842 & even a few P/1845 Extra Service Muskets, other regts had the P/1839, P/1842 & a few regts also had a few P/1845 ESMs.

The Altered Pattern 1842 Rifled Musket was not issued to land-based infantry in the Crimea - just imagine the ammunition calamity - it was for that reason it was forbade. The only force of import that was issued with it, besides the Royal Marines, were the Channel Island Militia who received 6,000 of the 27,400 AP/1842 RMs made. (All this is covered in detail in the aforementioned book coming out)

Apologies for again straying from the topic of cutlasses.

kronckew · 15th November 2022, 07:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adrian

. ...
There is no mention of cutlasses as the Royal Marines did not carry them, ...

I was not implying that UK Marines carried Cutlasses, they had bayonets. I just mentioned them as the main topic of this thread was cutlasses and there was no reference to cutlasses in that article being carried by anyone, let alone what model. The thread here was about cutlasses, not muskets. I was just emphasising that my excerpt had nothing to do with cutlasses, and was just adding to the item on muskets.

CutlassCollector · 16th November 2022, 08:46 PM

........ and they are to be thanked & lauded for sharing the results of their long years of dedicated research and for their passion and enthusiasm which many benefit from & share.

I agree with this thought and have the utmost respect for those researchers who must have spent hours and days poring over documents, searching out examples and corresponding with museum curators. We have it a lot easier with the web, access to auction pictures and online museum collections worldwide.

The forum is also a major factor in sharing knowledge and I was struck when discussing the Tower of London fire that information came from completely different sources depending on whether the perspective was from firearms or cutlasses. All improving the understanding.

I was hoping that there would have been a few more 1804 cutlasses posted on Mark's excellent idea for a thread. But there are not so many 1804 survivors.

Often military firearms are talked about in the 100,000s while for cutlasses it is more like in the 1000s as they were assigned to ships not individuals. There is no standard because it would depend on the size of the crew but roughly 350 cutlasses for a British Ship of the Line and perhaps 280 to a frigate. A requisition order for the first three US Navy frigates states 550, which equates to around 180 per ship.

We know from Swords for Sea Service that a total of only 30,000 were ordered in 1804/1808 and Mark has listed the suppliers already in post 5. There are probably a few more than this number as it is also noted that Hadley was permitted to deliver more that his order of 2500 and there are also examples marked to Harvey, Eddels and Tatham and Egg.

The 1804 cutlass does not look pretty and the flat plain blade necessitates a fairly heavy blade for strength but it is still a very well balanced sword. Good enough to be in service for 30 years or so.

The construction is not as simple as it looks as the blade is made up of two parts. The tang and lower section of the blade is made from iron or mild steel (I am not sure which) which is more resilient to shock impact and less likely to fracture. It is scarf welded during the forging process to the rest of blade which is of of higher carbon steel more able to take an edge.

Sometimes, on worn blades, the scarf is visible with very faint lines and sometimes the texture of the surface is different because it has corroded in a slightly different way. The cypher is normally stamped into the softer steel.

The 1804 is still one of my favourites.

12th November 2022, 08:58 PM	#1
adrian Member Join Date: Mar 2012 Posts: 118	Thanks for posting that passage from 'Sea Service Swords', most interesting indeed. All available swords were to be sent to the Tower for modification. The modified cutlasses were coming into service by the end of March 1841, but before little more than 1000 had been modified and issued a fire at the Tower destroyed large numbers and left the Navy seriously short of weapons, and on 9th November, 1841 it was recommended that 10,000 new cutlasses be ordered. It indicates that these were being sent to the Tower in quite small batches, taking over ten months to achieve a number of 1,000 that had been modified & returned, that parallels similar practice with small arms modifications. So the aforementioned number of swords & sword blades combined, of 3,647 (contemporaneous quote from an official return of military and naval stores destroyed, an accurate figure and not a vague quantity), quite likely included several small 'batches', some hundreds. Not a large number by any means, unlikely to leave the Navy seriously short of weapons. It is difficult to determine the level of conjecture within that sentence without the inclusion of actual evidence that a large number of cutlasses/naval swords/swords, were destroyed in the Tower fire, which should ideally be quoted or referenced, especially if there is contrary evidence which can bring confusion. Does the book include a reference/citation for that sentence? Drawing from research into the muskets of this period is a 'similar' passage in a very well know and excellent standard reference on British Military Firearms, by H.L. Blackmore, with, arguably, unparalleled access to Ordnance records, is written, ‘280,000 stand of arms, including most of the new percussion arms, were lost’. Simply put this has proved to be inaccurate but, and more importantly, it distorts the degree of significance of this 'event' as regards British Military arms manufacture. Had it been written that 'the Store was nearly depleted as regards serviceable flintlock muskets & only a small number of new percussion arms were lost' then the degree of significance in the mind of the reader is almost the opposite. I mean no disrespect to the above authors, without such works our hobby would be a very hollow thing, and they are to be thanked & lauded for sharing the results of their long years of dedicated research and for their passion and enthusiasm which many benefit from & share. Scrutiny of a small sentence here & there such as we are doing now would simply not be possible without such important contributions and is a commendation of such works. Last edited by adrian; 12th November 2022 at 10:32 PM.

14th November 2022, 10:01 AM	#5
kronckew Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Room 101, Glos. UK Posts: 4,152	Excert from The 1842 Rifled and sighted Musket which mentions the fire (debatable as a reason) ... and adds details. It also mentions the RN Marines being issued percussion muskets in the full dissertation. Sadly, no mention of cutlasses... ================================================== =============== ... the Tower of London fire, which left the British short of infantry arms, and the Crimean War, which erupted in October 1853 and found the British military woefully unprepared to field and equip a large expeditionary force. As a result, the line infantry regiments went off to war carrying a mixture of older Pattern 1839, more newly produced Pattern 1842 and the newest Pattern 1851 muskets. By the end of the war, in March 1856 most of the regiments were no longer armed with smooth bore muskets and were primarily carrying Pattern 1851 and new Pattern 1853 muskets, as well as some rifled and sighted Pattern 1842 muskets. The adoption of the Pattern 1851 Mini” Rifle meant the end of the smooth bore era in the British military. At the suggestion of Lieutenant Colonel Sandham of the Royal Engineers it was undertaken to upgrade some of the existing stocks of Pattern 1842 muskets by rifling and sighting them. A total of 26,400 of the muskets were modified between April 1852 and April 1855, allowing the newly improved guns to be issued simultaneously with the new production Pattern 1851 Mini” Rifles. The initial supply of rifled and sighted Pattern 1842 muskets were issued to the Royal Marines, but it appears that as the war in the Crimea erupted that additional rifled and sighted Pattern 1842 muskets were issued to line infantry regiments as well. The improvements were simply to rifle the bore, which slightly increased the nominally .75 bore (actually .753”) to about .758” with four grooves, and to add a Pattern 1851 adjustable backsight. After the adoption of the Pattern 1853 Enfield with three groove rifling, this pattern of rifling was adopted. Thus, earlier upgraded P1842s have four groove bores and later ones have three groove bores. Although the Rifled & Sighted Pattern 1842 was produced in very small numbers for a rather brief period of time, it was an important stop-gap weapon at a time when Great Britain was in desperate need for modern rifled infantry arms. Even though the small-bore P1853 made it nearly anachronistic by the end of the Crimean War, the gun filled an important role and saw service during one of the toughest campaigns that the British military would endure until the Great War a half-century later. Last edited by kronckew; 14th November 2022 at 10:11 AM.

14th November 2022, 07:27 PM	#6
adrian Member Join Date: Mar 2012 Posts: 118	Excert from The 1842 Rifled and sighted Musket which mentions the fire (debatable as a reason) ... and adds details. It also mentions the RN Marines being issued percussion muskets in the full dissertation. Sadly, no mention of cutlasses... There is no mention of cutlasses as the Royal Marines did not carry them, they were, in effect, Infantry & were armed in similar fashion. The cutlasses were carried by seamen, along with other small arms. In this period the intent was to arm the Royal Marines with the exact same pattern arms as the infantry, however for a short time the arms shortage of the mid 1850s saw them armed with Altered Pattern 1842 Rifled Muskets. The Extract from College Hill Arsenal contains several minor inaccuracies that new research corrects. Tim's write ups are first class and this does not disparage his work in any way. Just a couple of quick points: The Army did not fight with a mix of muskets & rifles, only the 4th Division had smoothbores, the other Divisions were armed with P/1851 Rifles until quite late in the war when the P/1853 began to be issued there; this was only battalions at the conflict, 'Home' battalions did have a mix of muskets & rifles though very few were rifles as most of their quota of P/1851 rifles was recalled & went with the fighting troops, muskets of a 'Home' battalion included a mix and the most extreme saw 'Home' Foot Guards with P/1838, P/1842 & even a few P/1845 Extra Service Muskets, other regts had the P/1839, P/1842 & a few regts also had a few P/1845 ESMs. The Altered Pattern 1842 Rifled Musket was not issued to land-based infantry in the Crimea - just imagine the ammunition calamity - it was for that reason it was forbade. The only force of import that was issued with it, besides the Royal Marines, were the Channel Island Militia who received 6,000 of the 27,400 AP/1842 RMs made. (All this is covered in detail in the aforementioned book coming out) Apologies for again straying from the topic of cutlasses. Last edited by adrian; 14th November 2022 at 07:39 PM.

16th November 2022, 08:46 PM	#8
CutlassCollector Member Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Scotland Posts: 322	The 1804 is a great cutlass ........ and they are to be thanked & lauded for sharing the results of their long years of dedicated research and for their passion and enthusiasm which many benefit from & share. I agree with this thought and have the utmost respect for those researchers who must have spent hours and days poring over documents, searching out examples and corresponding with museum curators. We have it a lot easier with the web, access to auction pictures and online museum collections worldwide. The forum is also a major factor in sharing knowledge and I was struck when discussing the Tower of London fire that information came from completely different sources depending on whether the perspective was from firearms or cutlasses. All improving the understanding. I was hoping that there would have been a few more 1804 cutlasses posted on Mark's excellent idea for a thread. But there are not so many 1804 survivors. Often military firearms are talked about in the 100,000s while for cutlasses it is more like in the 1000s as they were assigned to ships not individuals. There is no standard because it would depend on the size of the crew but roughly 350 cutlasses for a British Ship of the Line and perhaps 280 to a frigate. A requisition order for the first three US Navy frigates states 550, which equates to around 180 per ship. We know from Swords for Sea Service that a total of only 30,000 were ordered in 1804/1808 and Mark has listed the suppliers already in post 5. There are probably a few more than this number as it is also noted that Hadley was permitted to deliver more that his order of 2500 and there are also examples marked to Harvey, Eddels and Tatham and Egg. The 1804 cutlass does not look pretty and the flat plain blade necessitates a fairly heavy blade for strength but it is still a very well balanced sword. Good enough to be in service for 30 years or so. The construction is not as simple as it looks as the blade is made up of two parts. The tang and lower section of the blade is made from iron or mild steel (I am not sure which) which is more resilient to shock impact and less likely to fracture. It is scarf welded during the forging process to the rest of blade which is of of higher carbon steel more able to take an edge. Sometimes, on worn blades, the scarf is visible with very faint lines and sometimes the texture of the surface is different because it has corroded in a slightly different way. The cypher is normally stamped into the softer steel. The 1804 is still one of my favourites.

13th November 2022, 05:00 PM	#2
CutlassCollector Member Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Scotland Posts: 322	It will be interesting to see the new book. The fact that the navy ordered 10,000 replacements after the fire is well documented and eventually resulted in the new model 1845 cutlass. The existence of cutlasses made with 1796 heavy cavalry blades as a stopgap supports the claim there was a real shortage. How much of that was a direct result of the fire is now not clear, but as the fleet had shrunk from 840 ships at the height of the Napoleonic wars to around 140 in 1845 the navy should have had large stocks of spare 1804s. So the numbers lost would have had to be high to cause a shortage, unless of course they had previously reduced the total by scrapping some. Does the book include a reference/citation for that sentence? There are three references for that sentence - I have never followed them up! P.R.O. W.O.47/1849 19th April 1841 P.R.O. Adm.2/1648 p.156, 2 December 1841 and W.O. 47/1917 December 1841,p 15881

13th November 2022, 06:31 PM	#3
Jim McDougall Arms Historian Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Route 66 Posts: 9,785	I mean no disrespect to the above authors, without such works our hobby would be a very hollow thing, and they are to be thanked & lauded for sharing the results of their long years of dedicated research and for their passion and enthusiasm which many benefit from & share. Scrutiny of a small sentence here & there such as we are doing now would simply not be possible without such important contributions and is a commendation of such works.[/QUOTE] While not toward the general discussion, I'd like to say this is beautifully written Adrian, and something that should always be remembered, that we owe all these authors a great debt of respect for what they got right. The things they had wrong, in whatever degree, were the benchmarks for what we pursued to make right.

13th November 2022, 08:08 PM	#4
adrian Member Join Date: Mar 2012 Posts: 118	Thank you for this detailed reply and it is good to read that there are references cited for anyone wanting to research the conclusion in more detail. The fact that the navy ordered 10,000 replacements after the fire is well documented and eventually resulted in the new model 1845 cutlass. The existence of cutlasses made with 1796 heavy cavalry blades as a stopgap supports the claim there was a real shortage. How much of that was a direct result of the fire is now not clear, but as the fleet had shrunk from 840 ships at the height of the Napoleonic wars to around 140 in 1845 the navy should have had large stocks of spare 1804s. So the numbers lost would have had to be high to cause a shortage, unless of course they had previously reduced the total by scrapping some. There was a shortage of muskets also at this time, the many hundreds of thousands of spare muskets in Store in 1816 was still quite high in 1829 at about 700,000, by 1838 it was so low that measures were taken to provide more flintlock arms until new muskets in percussion were available. From 1829 nearly 500,000 went to foreign allies. It would make sense that other arms were being included in such transfers, perhaps sea service swords also. The Board ordered what amounted to over 100,000 P/1842 Muskets after the fire, however the pattern was sealed before the fire & parts arrived from contractors so quickly one gets the impression that their manufacture had been underway already. The fire had no bearing upon this yet is often assumed to be the reason for the new musket pattern.