The m1804 British naval cutlass

[adrian]

It has been discussed before and opinions vary as to why an 1804 would have a VR stamp when no new cutlasses had been made for many years. Some think that the cypher is fake, but it looks OK to me - any thoughts?

Thank you for posting the photos of this intriguing WR modified to VR royal cypher. I can only draw a parallel with muskets of the same period. The war store of these (complete muskets) was so vast, by 1816, that it was not worryingly low until 1838, and measures were then undertaken to address that, while awaiting the new percussion arm to be finalised. The Store of parts was also vast, and it was that 'store' which provided barrels & locks for the new arms. The barrels had their GR era proof & view stamps, they were not erased & re-stamped, merely viewed & approved as regards their 'percussioning'. The locks did not anyway have any engraving & bore only an acceptance stamp - so they acquired the current royal cypher as part of the work of setting-up an arm. The number of muskets made using up the 'old' stock of barrels & locks comprised about eight patterns and numbered well over a quarter of a million muskets, the vast majority being Extra Service Muskets.

Quite why these blades have been stamped with a royal cypher is unknown to me, however it is clear that the cypher has been altered from WR to VR and that it looks to be authentic.



My own theory for the contradiction follows. A large number of existing 1804 cutlasses had been sent to the tower for modification, which included a new hilt, when a serious fire at the Tower in 1841 destroyed large numbers of these. In order to make up the the serious shortage these were re-issued with a VR stamp in the 1840s.

The fire at the Tower was, if one reads modern references, a major watershed in the direction of British Ordnance small arms due to it, supposedly, wiping out all percussion muskets made to date, wiping out a vast number of a new design of flintlock muskets that were going to be converted to percussion and wiping out a vast store of parts that were going to be used. This belief is largely false. I won't go into detail but would instead point any interested student of arms to a new book that will be published by the Royal Armouries next year in which chapter 7 covers that fire and the number of arms lost in detail, the book 'British Ordnance Muskets of the 1830s & 1840s'.
I have to say that it is unlikely that your quite sound theory will hold up to scrutiny as the official return for swords lost in that conflagration is 1,376 swords & 2,271 sword blades - it provides no distinction between sea service or land service, nor does it distinguish between those services for pistols, muskets, etc. How many of those 'swords' were cutlasses is therefore uncertain, but the overall number is anyway too small to have any import.

However, the Tower was only one of many Stores - which is why there was so little impact as can be seen by the aforementioned vast number of muskets made with barrels & locks from store, altered to percussion. So perhaps some cutlasses were made/altered at a different location, indeed I would have thought that Enfield, and not the Tower, would have been tasked with the changes you describe in your theory especially given the period under discussion.
Indeed there was 'Sea Service swords, alterations proposed on, by Storekeeper, Enfield. Approved by Admiralty.' and although that was in 1852 it is logical to speculate that this was not the first such instance of such work to sea service swords.

[M ELEY]

Thank you for posting that incredible modified WR marking! That really is an interesting adaptation from the original stamp! It is interesting that we obviously have the m1804s that are being used into William's and Victoria's era. No new pattern was created until the forth decade of the 19th, but still the odd fact that the GR was still being found on later pieces.

I had heard of the Tower fire, but always assumed it had mostly destroyed the stored guns. I wasn't thinking that there was a cache of the ole m1804's being kept there (duh!). That could explain the re-usage of the earlier blades when the stockpile was depleted and new ones weren't being issued. As Adrian points out, pure speculation, but at least a possible theory to this situation. I confess that it is mostly for selfish reasons why it bothers me! If the GR markings were used later (after Age of Fighting Sail), then they were used in an era where they were obsolescent. Likewise, how does one know if 'this cutlass over here' is of the period, but that one was post-1830 or whatever. I could see questioning the crown-marked Swedish imports or even the unmarked examples. But an 1804 with the GR has always been solidly assumed by most to be of the time period of the two Georges...until now, I guess!

[CutlassCollector]

This belief is largely false. I won't go into detail but would instead point any interested student of arms to a new book that will be published by the Royal Armouries next year in which chapter 7 covers that fire and the number of arms lost in detail, the book 'British Ordnance Muskets of the 1830s & 1840s'.

Any new research is, of course, always good and it will be interesting to see the results.

My theory, and it is just that, was based on the information in Swords for Sea Service (p80) whose authors had access to the relevant records.

'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.'

This was approved on 3rd December 1841.

Note that May and Annis are specifically talking about cutlasses there is no mention of firearms or other swords or how many were destroyed or unserviceable due to heat damage. According to the footnotes the information comes from War Office documents hence the exact dates. New information can always come to light with further research.

What is definite is the shortage of cutlasses at this time and the subsequent difficulty in obtaining new ones when none had been made for decades.

One of the stopgaps to cover the shortfall was making cutlasses by cutting down the blades of 1796 heavy cavalry swords (there were 12000 in storage) and fitting them with cutlass grips and guards. It is unclear how many of these were made but there are a few examples extant, but probably no where near the 8-10,000 ordered as the manufacturers were starting to get their act together and produce new cutlasses in quantity by 1845 or so.

'However, the Tower was only one of many Stores'
This is a good point - perhaps there were other 1804's in storage elsewhere that could have been brought into service, but again surely they would have been stamped with a cypher at manufacture not issue, like the large stocks of GR firearms you mention, that lasted into William's reign.

The VR 1804 remains a mystery, I guess.

CC

[adrian]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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...

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... 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.