British Cavalry Swords (Victorian through WWI)

[WebleyGreene455]

Good evening everyone.

Bit of an odd question but does anyone know about these?

I saw a bunch of WWI-era (well, early 1920s) British (Irish, apparently) cavalry officers on TV with an unusual sword I've not seen before and can't quite place. Now, I thought I could at least identify the rough type of sword from the guard but this one? Not so much. I don't have a photo but I can describe it with these:

The hilt/guard resembled this, the Pattern 1845 Infantry Officer's sword:

But obviously an Infantry officer's sword wouldn't be used by the Cavalry, would it? The blade appeared to be straight or very nearly so; the scabbards were made of steel but wasn't a Pattern 1908 or the officer's Pattern 1912, nor was it one of the 19th Century swords/sabres I could recognize; the 1822 and 1845 models had similar hilts but were of steel and the 1853 and 1885 models had vastly different guard designs and were likewise of steel.

So I suppose that, being a TV show, they might've had an error in the costuming, intentional or otherwise. Or else there's a sword I don't know about that they used or maybe some cavalry officers decided to use modified infantry swords or something like that.

Can anyone help out there?

Thanks,
~~W.G.455

 

[Red Leg]

Napoleonic and American Civil War eras are really what I am most comfortable with (and for which I have a number of examples hanging around), but British heavy cavalry - particularly Household Cavalry - has a long tradition of long straight bladed sabers. The first real formal "pattern" one finds is the 1788 pattern with basket hilt and long straight usually double fullered blade. It was superseded during the Napoleonic Wars by the 1796 pattern, again with a long straight blade, but simpler modified D-guard hilt. The 1906 pattern, which armed many cavalryman into WWI also had a long straight blade with a partial bowl shaped hilt. Compared to its predecessors, the blade was relatively thin and optimized for stabbing rather than slashing. If the hilt was a pierced basket design, then it was likely the model 1874 pattern that armed the Household heavy cavalry during the final years of the 19th century.

Light cavalry carried lighter curved sabers that were optimized for slashing. The most famous was the 1796 model that soldiered through the Napoleonic wars. But I believe the various curved patterns had been superseded by the 1906 model. As a reference for your library, I can highly recommend "Swords of the British Army" by Brian Robson, Naval & Military Press, 2011.

A period TV production that does a remarkable job of getting equipment correct is the Sharpe series. You can pull them up on line. They don't have a cast of thousands so the battles are a bit contrived, but uniforms and weapons are pretty close. As he does in the novels, Sharpe (Sean Bean) - a rifleman - drags around a pattern 1796 heavy cavalry saber by choice.

 

[WebleyGreene455]

Napoleonic and American Civil War era is really what I am most comfortable with, but British heavy cavalry - particularly Household Cavalry - has a long tradition of long straight bladed sabers. The first real formal "pattern" one finds is the 1788 pattern with basket hilt and long straight usually double fullered blade. It was superseded during the Napoleonic Wars by the 1796 pattern, again with a long straight blade, but simpler modified D-guard hilt. The 1906 pattern, which armed many cavalryman into WWI also had a long straight blade with a partial bowl shaped hilt. Compared to its predecessors, the blade was relatively thin and optimized for stabbing rather than slashing. If the hilt was a pierced basket design, then it was likely the model 1874 pattern that armed the Household heavy cavalry during the final years of the 19th century.

Light cavalry carried lighter curved sabers that were optimized for slashing. The most famous was the 1796 model that soldiered through the Napoleonic wars. As a reference for your library, I can highly recommend "Swords of the British Army" by Brian Robson, Naval & Military Press, 2011.

A period TV production that does a remarkable job of getting equipment correct is the Sharpe series. You can pull them up on line. They don't have a cast of thousands so the battles are a bit contrived, but uniforms and weapons are pretty close. As he does in the novels, Sharpe (Sean Bean) - a rifleman - drags around a pattern 1796 heavy cavalry saber by choice.

Hi Red Leg.

Alas, it's not the Household Cavalry sword nor the 1906 pattern. Definitely a three-bar guard in the style of the "Gothic"-hilted Infantry swords. Upon some further investigation, the cavalry officers seem to be part of the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards. Now, if dragoons at the time truly were "dragoons" and not simply cavalry or mounted infantry (like the Aussie Light Horse), then that might explain the use of an infantry-hilted sword possibly with a replaced thrusting/stabbing blade, since the P1897 Infantry Sword likewise switched to a straight one. Since many of them were well-to-do officers of good family, they might well have been using family swords or some such.

I found a photo of the hilt (sorta):

Now I may be misremembering all of the swords being the same and some of them might be using the WWI-era sword after all (and that particular fellow's a general and probably of sufficient age to have been in the Boer War, I should think, so he might well have just had his own older sword anyway). I'd have to go back and look more closely.

As for Sharpe, I started on those just a few months back and finished Sharpe's Prey last week. I'll have to get the next three or four when I buy some books again. I believe Sharpe gets his famous heavy cavalry sword in the next one.

 

[Red Leg]

Dragoon’s, like Household Cavalry, carried long heavy straight blade sabers from at least 1788. Mounted officer sabers are a separate study in and of themselves. An officer had great latitude In a saber detail design. The blade might follow the specific pattern, while the hilt was quite individual. Obviously, a colonel or general officer had far more latitude.

Just to demonstrate British penchant for long, heavy straight sabers among their heavy cavalry are two from my collection. The one on the left is Sharpe's 1796 pattern, and the one on the right is a 1788 pattern. In the late Victorian period, heavy cavalry would have been armed with a heavy straight blade, almost certainly the 1874 pattern (Regrettably, I don't personally have one of those modern, uninteresting blades). An officer's sword of that pattern would likely have a multi-bar guard.

 

[WebleyGreene455]

Dragoon’s, like Household Cavalry, carried long heavy straight blade sabers from at least 1788. Mounted officer sabers are a separate study in and of themselves. An officer had great latitude In a saber detail design. The blade might follow the specific pattern, while the hilt was quite individual. Obviously, a colonel or general officer had far more latitude.

Just to demonstrate British penchant for long, heavy straight sabers among their heavy cavalry are two from my collection. The one on the left is Sharpe's 1796 pattern, and the one on the right is a 1788 pattern. In the late Victorian period, heavy cavalry would have been armed with a heavy straight blade, almost certainly the 1874 pattern (Regrettably, I don't personally have one of those modern, uninteresting blades). An officer's sword of that pattern would likely have a multi-bar guard.

View attachment 362079

Nice swords. I'll try to see if I can get some better looks at the ones in the show and perhaps narrow it down further, but since it's TV it might just be whatever they had available, anyway.

And I myself, like Sharpe and the British in general, have developed a penchant for heavy straight-bladed swords with a basket hilt or some such. Scottish broadswords, mortuary swords, 18th and 19th century heavy cavalry etc. I only have modern reproductions of a few of them, however.