[Jim McDougall]

Hi Alexander,
It is of course a very broad based question, but as far as English blade production beginning in volume, these were of course based mostly on military requirements and may be considered primarily in the last quarter of the 18th into the early 19th century. In the 1780s there were just a few key English swordsmiths, and there became the conflict in which they were challenging the long established imported blades from Germany. It was during these times, first with the M1788 light cavalry sabre, that these makers, Thomas Gill and James Wooley, began declaring the integrity of thier weapons on the blades themselves by marking them 'Warranted never to fail'. Samuel Harvey, who was also one of the key swordsmiths, as far as I know did not use this phrase. He is however, the last smith to use the well known running wolf with his initials, which in itself stood as much the same type declaration.

In 1796, the first official regulation pattern swords for the British cavalry were established, many of them made by Gill and Wooley, but numbers of others began being produced in contracts by private makers for the royal armouries at Enfield. These makers produced significant numbers of these and other pattern swords in contracts by the government and officially accepted at these armouries. The most important in producing the M1796 light cavalry sabres was Henry Osborne, who is believed to have been working directly with LeMarchant, the innovative cavalry officer intent on developing the most effective sabres. Osborne also used the 'Warranted' phrase.

Naturally, private or civilian swords such as hunting hangers, smallswords and court swords were produced on smaller scale by individual makers through the 18th century. The first production of swords in any number was probably best described as the Hounslow venture in the 1640s near London, with smiths who had been brought from Germany by the King. Toward the end of the century, there was the Shotley Bridge venture, also primarily German ancestry makers, and of limited success. These were the forerunners of British makers in the next century, but not considered the industrial scale you are suggesting.

I would imagine this might be considered the beginning of larger scale production of English blades, in the early years of the 19th century. By the 1820s the Wilkinson Co. was working on innovations in the making of blades, and by the 1850s began larger scale production, becoming the most well known sword manufacturer in the world. Ironically, they had been gunmakers (initially founded in 1772 by Henry Nock).
In a note of further irony, Wilkinson ceased its sword making firm in 2005, with the equipment and tools purchased by WKC (Weyersberg, Kirschbaum & Cie) in Solingen.....a curious postscript to the intense competition between English swordmakers and Solingen some two centuries earlier.

I hope this might be of some help.

All best regards,
Jim