English Basket Hilt

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by Triarii

I have Stuart Mowbrays book and I managed to get in contact with him about the riding sword featured there, which is in his own collection.
I don't have Mazansky, but I found the 100 page essay by Claude Blair in the Caldwell book really useful in getting to grips with the evolution of the basket hilt.

I'd be very interested in any information you may have on basket hilted sword production in London.

Here's the mortuary sword (and a proto mortuary sword for comparison). My jury is out on whether the latter is for infantry or cavalry use.

The late Mr. Blair's paper on basket hilts is outstanding!
By London makers, I was referring mostly to Jeffries and Drury, who hilted these military basket hilts for infantry units including Black Watch, known to have used these. They turned them in in 1784 as infantry ceased carrying swords.

As far as the range of English basket hilts, there were numbers of them produced in garrison towns such as Glasgow and Sterling, following more Scottish style. Most others were likely produced by many 'sword slippers' in any number of locations.