Hounslow Sword Factory

[Jim McDougall]

Thank you for itemizing your specific areas of interest, so that they can be addressed more accurately.
1. England, just as most of Europe was highly reliant on Germany for blades, however it was not just Solingen, which was the main center for centuries.
It is important to know the concept of CUTLERY, which prevailed in England and Scotland.
A cutler is an artisan who assembles swords to essentially be supplied or retailed, using acquired blades, primarily imported or by other means. They fashioned hilts according to locally preferred styles and current fashion.

A good case in point is Scotland, where the famed basket hilt broadsword has always been the traditional icon of the Highlander, but of course was extant in Lowland variation as well. While the basket hilt of course existed in form much earlier in Europe and diffused into England, its development is fascinating and beautifully detailed in "The Early Basket Hilt in Britain" by Claude Blair, in "Scottish Weapons and Fortifications" (ed. David Caldwell, 1981).

There are virtually NO Scottish basket hilts with blades other than from Germany , and the ubiquitous blades with the name ANDREA FERARA (of course spuriously applied) were the virtual hallmark of Scottish basket hilts.
There were NO Scottish bladesmiths (though there are cases where there might have been few made locally, possibly by Allen).

In Scotland, the men assembling these swords and producing the hilts were sword 'slippers' essentially cutlers. There were many of these of course, and over the years all over Scotland.
It was much the same throughout Great Britain, and with cutlers they often included other trades in their repertoire, mostly as jewelers, metal workers, even toy makers.

There were virtually NO bladesmiths in Scotland, England, Ireland or Wales, save a few isolated exceptions who have basically been unrecorded in most accounts.

Most of the blades found on British swords will be German, from Solingen primarily, however early blades from Passau and Munich are also likely..
Many blades may have Styrian origin (Austria) and as always the blades of Toledo and Italy were highly regarded.
This is why they were so highly copied by Solingen and Munich (among the key blade centers, which are of course numerous others).

Remember that swords were often rehilted through their working lives, which often of course covered generations if not centuries. Blades were expendable and often damaged or broken, so obviously refurbishing used different options of blades. They were traditional and heirloom, so often much older blades occur in more currently fashioned hilts.

There is no concise or easy answer to the distribution of sword blades in a categorized area it depends on many mitigating factors.

2/3 . Hounslow was essentially an isolated enterprise which was basically experimental in hoping to develop an English blade making center with skilled smiths trained by the famed German makers. It remained isolated in its production while the overall assembly of swords throughout Britain remained in its traditional reliance on local cutlers.
Important to note..........there was never any commercial exportation of swords FROM Britain. Swords from British sources in other spheres were entirely from colonial circumstances.

Another important note the LONDON CUTLERS COMPANY by definition was a guild of CUTLERS who of course assembled swords using blades from other sources (mostly German).
It is unclear how many blades were actually produced in Hounslow, however clearly there are blades inscribed with the Hounslow name and inscribed by makers who are among the German makers known there. Actually it seems that the larger volume of swords produced in Hounslow used the 'salting' of blades primarily from German sources (mostly Solingen).

The reason Hounslow was chosen as a location was for the river where mills could provide the water power for mills, and most important, it was OUTSIDE the geographic jurisdiction of the London Cutlers Company. The mysterious Benjamin Stone was an entrepreneur who capitalized on the desires of Charles I to bring in German makers hopefully to AVOID reliance on German imports.
This concept had been used earlier by Henry VIII, who brought German armorers to Greenwich to augment his armor making enterprises.

4. Hounslow does seem to have had favored forms, however these were locally favored forms of the period not necessarily exclusive to there.
Keep in mind there were many individual shops and makers, not one sprawling factory and they operated independently.
The notion of a Hounslow 'school' of hilt form evolved as usual from the popular thoughts of collectors who sensationalized the character of some of the hilt forms directly associated with Hounslow. There was no 'standard' Hounslow form hilt but the distinctive hilts of the hangers seems well established.

When Hounslow was taken over by Cromwell during the Civil Wars, many of the smiths went to Oxford with the Royalists, and most of Hounslows mills were repurposed to powder production. It does seem that so called 'mortuary' swords (another collectors term) were made there as well as some rapiers, but predominating were hangers, as discussed.

Picture 1 a Hounslow hanger
2 'mortuary', typical English half basket attributed to Hounslow with ANDREA FERARA blade, German blades clearly were a
strong component of Hounslow produced blades.

I am delighted to see someone take an interest in the Hounslow topic, and see you have read one of the articles on this. There are of course many, but there has never been a neatly packaged book with all the details of this tremendously under researched subject. Actually over many years of research I was able to find numerous brief articles, but these are quite esoteric and had to be searched extensively to locate.

[urbanspaceman]

Hey Jim. Well done-as usual.
I will attempt to drop in bits and pieces where I can although you have pretty much covered it... as much as is possible for now, as I do think I will take it on now I have essentially finished with SB.
The book 'The Mark of the Sword' (I am away from home as you know and do not have access to my archives) by - if memory serves - Mark Girtin gives a thoroughly comprehensive history of the London Cutlers Guild. While 90% of it is of little interest to us, I did skim it well enough to locate all the passages relevant to Hounslow, SB and the current industry: much of which is in my book in the addenda.
The issue of the total lack of British bladesmiths is a topic I have never got to grips with... watch this space.
Re-hilting and re-blading was inevitably widespread. Again, in my book, there are examples of the initial batch of Solingen made blades with SB scripts found with a Hounslow mushroom cap hilt, and a half basket also (see my book) then, of course, there is the hunting hangar with a shortened blade that was obviously once a horseman's broadsword; plus a plug bayonet as well.
I would like to stress that the Germans in Hounslow were quite entitled to use their family version of the Passau Wolf. Peter Munsten is a strong case in point and his stylised latten wolf is regularly seen on blades with typical Hounslow hilts (hangars in particular seemed to be his forté). I don't know when or why the use of me fecit hounslow (or London!!!) came about but I will try and establish this when I take up the Hounslow sword story.
Cromwell was far from stupid and certainly maintained blade mills and smiths alongside the powder mill. I say mill because up till now I have only established one (in my book addenda) and Johannes Dell is a perfect example of a young German - trained in his apprenticeship in London who went to work for Kindt I believe - and was still active in 1685 in Hounslow.
So much of this stuff is in my book so anyone seriously interested in the establishment of the British sword industry should read it (for free!).
BTW: the so-called mortuary hilts were made predominently on the Hebridean island of Islay. As to why? Watch this space.
It is possible that - using a Solingen import - the entire sword was made there. The forge on Islay had been the McDonald's armoury for centuries. Islay was - of course - the home to the Lords of the Isles. Now it is home to eleven (and counting) whisky distileries.