Introduction
I had been stalking swords of this type for quite a while to complete my working stable of antique sabers (I don't buy repros in this category, unlike repro katana, they just don't handle as well as originals). I found this sword on eBay as described in the OP. There were some worrisome aspects to the offering, but given the possible risks versus benefits, after some research on both the sword as well as the seller, I decided to bid seriously, and won the auction.
Full Disclosure
I have no financial, business, or employment association with SBG or the seller.
Initial Impressions
The sword was received inside a long rectangular cardboard box (which had obviously suffered some vicissitudes in its journey), scabbarded, with the hilt covered in a separate wrapping of packing tape over cardboard, and cushioned with a long ropelike spiral wrap of brown packing paper, sufficient to prevent movement. It was easy to unpack by cutting the tape at one end of the box, and pulling the sword out by its packing. I consider it "well packed".
On initial handling, I was very impressed by the state of preservation of the sword, the rattle-free fit, and how it fit in my hand. Some nearby tall stalks of
Alpinia got snipped off at this point.
While cleaning, oiling, and waxing the blade, I was again impressed with the near-pristine state of the blade etching, and noticed the center of percussion marking on the blade's spine.
Statistics
Length Over All in Scabbard: 1065 mm
Length Of Scabbard: 915 mm
Length Of Hilt: 150 mm
Length Of Grip: 120 mm
Length Over All: 1025 mm
Blade Length: 875 mm
Curve: 16 mm
Point of balance: 120 mm
Center of percussion: 522 mm
Sword Weight: TBD grams
Total Weight: TBD grams
Blade Width/Thickness:
Station Width Thickness Max Thickness Min
- Ricasso 31.01 mm 8.56 mm 6.67 mm (ricasso is a truncated wedge in thickness)
- 100mm 27.62 mm 7.14 mm
- 200mm 26.32 mm 6.72 mm
- 300mm 26.05 mm 6.30 mm
- 400mm 26.00 mm 5.63 mm
- 500mm 25.94 mm 4.98 mm
- 600mm 25.16 mm 3.31 mm
- 700mm 24.21 mm 2.82 mm (at centerline)
- 800mm 22.24 mm 2.75 mm (at centerline)
Historical overview
This saber is a British-made 1821 LC hilt pattern with the 1845 (not uncommonly called a "Wilkinson") model blade, hereinafter called a "P1821/M45". These blades were made regulation in 1845, largely through the politicking of their developer, Henry Wilkinson, to alleviate shortcomings reported with the 1821 pipeback pattern.
The particular pattern of officer's sword adopted by the Royal Artillery differed from the Light Cavalry mainly in the etched decorations of the blade. The RA variant usually includes, on one side of the blade, the sovereign's cypher above the RA carriage-mounted gun, with "UBIQUE" in a scroll surmounting it, and the RA winged thunderbolts bracketed by "ROYAL ARTILLERY", on the other. Colonial and volunteer artillery units did not always follow these markings exactly, as will be discussed below.
To dispose of the matter hastily, to begin with, the Royal Artillery (along with the Royal Engineers), wasn't properly part of the British Army at all, but rather reported to the Board of Ordnance, and retains to this day, despite various integrating reorganizations, certain distinguishing peculiarities resulting from this, such as a blue rather than a red dress uniform. At the time that my saber was made, the Royal Artillery was still very much distinct from the Army proper (Infantry and Cavalry), requiring officers to pass an examination (and graduate from a separate academy in Woolwich, where math and science were taught) rather than purchase their commissions (the Army looked down on "Gunners" as "not quite gentlemen", while the RA viewed their red-coated colleagues as mentally inferior
) . The peculiarities which concern us here include the RA's single battle honor, Ubique ("Everywhere" in Latin), and the intimate association of field artillery with horse transport, which caused their officers to need to carry cavalry sabers, rather than infantry swords. Many of the oddities of the RA were transmitted to voluntary militia artillery units.
RA and related links:
Major General Strange, known to his contemporaries as "Gunner Jingo" (he was unashamedly somewhere farther out on the right wing than even Kipling or Haggard), has left us a pricelessly candid account of what it was like to be an officer in both the RA as well as the Canadian Militia in the 1800's, in his autobiography, Gunner Jingo's Jubilee. Among other things, it gives graphic accounts of both the Sepoy Mutiny and the Northwest Rebellion.
The unit that the sword is inscribed to, Montreal Artillery, or in its full form, Brigade of Montreal Garrison Artillery, Volunteer Militia, of Lower Canada, was gazetted in 1855, during the Crimean War, as a result of many British units (including RA) being pulled out of Canada to support the fighting elsewhere (the withdrawal of all British units occurred in 1870, forcing the Canadians to finally establish a standing army, or "permanent active militia" in Canadian parlance of the time). Perusing the various Wikipedia articles on these matters will confuse one a great deal, as much Parliamentary and Ministerial waffling, both Canadian and British, seems to have occurred between 1855 and 1940 (when the Canadian Army was finally named what it was, with a proper Reserve, as well). IMHO, these matters are entirely too complicated as well as political to detail in this post (I've been scrapping drafts for days), so here are some references from which the reader may sort out the mess to their own satisfaction:
Links specific to the Montreal Artillery:
The reason why all this material needed reference is due to the extreme rarity and peculiarity of this particular sword. The distillation of it all is that there could have been only 14 of these made in this particular model and etching (probably somewhat fewer) going by the unit's list of officers and their service dates (NCO's and Gunners in the Montreal were not authorized swords). In addition, the absence of certain motifs from the etchings must be accounted for (British and Colonial Militia units of the 1800's often had a long hard fight to get authorization to use the same markings as the Regulars), and the use of a fleur-de-lis proof slug on a Thurkle sword begs explanation as well (he probably bought it in due to an excess of orders). All of this will be covered in the next sections, citing the references above when necessary.
Description of the sword
The sword knot shown is one that I made from black ito and attached for testing. The 1855 original would have been the fancy gold bullion tasseled strap, followed within a few years by the gold acorn style still used, as shown in the OP illustrations of Montreal Battery officers.
Other than the winged thunderbolt decorations peculiar to the Artillery, this sword is a very typical mid-range P1821/M45 Light Cavalry saber with a nominally 34 1/2" by 1 1/4" blade, three-bar plated steel hilt, and a wire-wrapped shagreen-covered grip. The hilt is worn from use, but the grip is still in excellent condition.
It is provided with a wood-lined metal scabbard which has the rattle-free fit which suggests that it's an original. The throat and both screws are present. There is a shallow but pronounced curve to the blade.
The smooth backstrap and thumb placer are as expected for a date in the range 1855-1864. Checkered thumb placers gained popularity in the middle to late 1860's, and by 1870 they became expected on any new sword (full backstrap checkering became regulation in the middle 1890's).
The pommel has the pronounced stepping characteristic of late Georgian through early Victorian P1821 LC's. All the references that I've checked confirm that, for 19th. Century originals, presence or absence of pommel stepping has more to do with date made than branch assignment, despite its current association with the Artillery saber.
Now we get down to the matters touching provenance. The only decorations are the winged thunderbolts on both sides with "MONTREAL ARTILLERY" in place of "ROYAL ARTILLERY". There is neither "The GUN" with "UBIQUE", nor Victoria's Cypher present. This is best explained by the difficulties that other colonial and volunteer units later had in getting such distinctions officially authorized. The Montreal unit was under more scrutiny than most, and not situated to do as they pleased, and seek absolution later.
Here's an example of what I'm glad is
NOT on my sword. At least the Montreal Artillery didn't have some English etcher's impression of a beaver inflicted on them.
The Thurkle maker's marking looks perfectly acceptable for the period.
The proof slug, OTOH, should have a star in the center of "PROVED", but has a fleur de lis. This initially bothered me when I saw it in the offering, but given the demand for sabers at the time, due to the replacement of Crimean losses as well as the jolting surprise of the Sepoy Mutiny immediately on the heels of the Crimean War, IMHO the sword was bought in to cover a shortfall in production at Thurkle's firm. After seeing a very similar proof slug and etching style on a U.S. 1860 variant, marked "E.&F.HÖRSTER/SOLINGEN", I'm considering that firm as a very probable source, though Wilkinson also used the fleur de lis proof on the "common proof" swords that they anonymously sold to other makers as well as outfitters (as stated in Wilkinson-Latham's posts on SFI), and cannot be totally ruled out. For one thing, I haven't yet seen a percussion arrow marking on a Solingen blade, but I wouldn't rule that out, either (my ignorance is vast). I don't consider Reeves as a probable source because his proof slugs had a notched or depressed margin, and this one is flush at the margin.
The sword also has a COP marking:
Discussion
What began as simply finding an appropriate sword at a reasonable price to fill a hole in my armory turned into a surprising safari through the literature. When I started looking stuff up to ensure that I wasn't bidding on a reproduction made for reenactors, the first thing I discovered was that there
weren't any, because, compared to in the US, interest in their country's military history seemed to be extremely limited in Canada
1. Digging into the reasons for this led me to evidence that national military policy had always been a political "hot potato" in Canada, and that the Canadian Army had very shallow, spindly, and peculiar historical roots. Beyond this, I learned that irregular locally-raised reserve forces ("militias", or whatever, the names varied) were controversial and unpopular during the zenith of the British Empire. Being a JROTC/college ROTC
2 product, a "weekend warrior" for several years as well, born and raised in the USA and a native-born Texan (Texas still has it's own official state militia, the
Texas State Guard), I found all this quite surprising. I'd always gotten the impression that the Brits and us shared the same strong Greco-Roman-based citizen soldier tradition, and found out otherwise.
While this saber is the only "Montreal Artillery" example which I have been able to find, a similar but more worn example, marked "Canada Artillery" bracketing the beaver on one side, with "The Gun" on the other, is currently being offered on eBay (for what I consider an unrealistic amount of money
)
www.ebay.com/itm/114978724515? Like my saber, it lacks both "VR" and "UBIQUE". Peculiarly, this saber has some ornate etched fleur-de-lis placed in such a way that they might fool the eye from a distance that they are "VR"'s
3. Marked for “P. Tait & Co.” in Limerick, it has a star-centered proof slug suggesting that it was made by B. Thurkle, and a smooth thumb placer putting it in the 1850's to early 1860's. Given that Tait added "Sir" to his mark in 1867, and that B. Thurkle died in 1864, I'd date it no later than the U.S. Civil War period. While some known examples of Infantry swords with "Canada Militia" flanking the beaver also show "VR", contemporary accounts emphasize that the Artillery in Canada was much better regulated and trained than either the Infantry or the Cavalry, suggesting that they also were on a much shorter leash in general, and the Quebec and Montreal units emphatically so
4. Given the later political rows over Canadian units being allowed to use "VRI", Canadian militia artillery units of this period probably didn't
dare put the sovereign's cypher on their swords, and they would have been denied "UBIQUE" as it counted as a battle honor specific to the Royal Artillery. They were probably also discouraged from using both "The Gun" and the winged thunderbolts on the same item, as it would have smacked too much of infringing on the privileges of the Royal Artillery.
Prior to WW I, besides occasional call ups to quell riots, the Montreal Battery was activated to repel border raids by the Fenians in 1866 and 1870, and a detachment was sent to the North-West Rebellion in 1878 (but only got as far as Regina due to transportation difficulties). Any or all of these activations could have required that officers swords be sharpened.
Footnotes:
1. Most of what little military reenacting there is seems to center on either the War of 1812 or WW II, having nothing to do with Victorian militia sabers.
2. Which dates to the
Morrill Act of 1862, giving some hint of the history and deep traction of military training and reserve forces in the U.S.
3. I suspect that this pattern may be that adopted by the battery in Quebec.
4. "Gunner Jingo" Strange, who inspected them regularly, brags on both of them, and he does not seem to have been a man who gave praise easily. His headquarters was in Quebec. Chambers' unit history of the Montreal Artillery (linked above) repeatedly emphasizes how strictly and professionally led they were.
Handling Characteristics
The blade feels light, well balanced, and is very maneuverable. The grip is comfortable
Test Cutting
It's absolutely wonderful for stabbing. It goes through a fabric-covered 4-inch foam cushion with little resistance. It is a marvelous blade to fence with. I'm sure that it would look impressive on parade. Compared to any of my katana, it doesn't slice well, and power cuts acceptably only near the COP. It will, however, produce the damage shown in the photos with a high speed on the foible. The seller described it as "lightly sharpened", but you can run your thumb down the edge without getting cut, and as received, IMHO, nobody had ever tried to put a razor edge on it. The edge looks virgin to me, without any rough scratches. Sharpening it to a sharper edge would likely improve things, but given that the secondary bevel already started conforms to the contemporary British idea that sabers should be sharpened to what amounts to a cold chisel edge, maybe not by much. I have no doubt that it will produce bloody lacerations, nasty contusions, and broken bones, but it's not anything close to a competition slicer.
OTOH, it has a perfectly marvelous spring temper, and isn't going to break. You can parry quite well with it.
All of this matches contemporary accounts of the performance of these sabers. A contemporary complaint was that in using them smartly on parade (as one is supposed to), the metal scabbard would ruin any fine edge while doing a "Recover!", anyway. Interestingly, the foible shows evidence of "throat clash" on the sides.