Part3_d
4/11/07
8:41 pm
Page 250
Our magnificent sword is one of only two presented by the City of London in the aftermath of the war between Britain and her allies and Russia of 1854–56. The fact that so few swords were presented by the City following the war may reflect the ambivalence felt in certain quarters towards the conduct of the war by many senior British officers, something which can be contrasted with the enormous outpouring of presentation swords and gold boxes by the City as rewards for numerous senior officers during the wars with France of 1793–1815. In a war in which few senior officers of the British army came to merit being regarded as heroic – that being a quality reserved in this instance for the ordinary British soldiers, whose qualities of heroism and forbearance were widely recognised and trumpeted – the achievements of William Fenwick Williams and his immediate subordinates in the defence of Kars gave Britain a genuine senior-officer hero whose merits could be recognised and rewarded. Our splendid, remarkable and important sword was the result of that process. It is known that General Williams’s sword cost the City of London two hundred guineas (£210.00) and in 1856 that bought a substantial amount. Our sword’s mounts are of massively cast and chased silver that has been very heavily gilded; they are from the workshop of Robert Hennell III (1794–1868), one of the most eminent London manufacturing and retailing silversmiths of his day and, in 1855–56, trading as Robert Hennell and Sons with premises at 14 Northumberland Street, Strand. Having initially voted to present General Williams with a gold box containing the Freedom of the City, the Court of Common Council changed its mind on 26 June 1856 and resolved instead to present him with a sword. The sword itself was presented just over a month later, on 31 July 1856. Williams arrived in England on Monday, 16 June 1856, but it seems unlikely that he would have been contacted by the City authorities until after the vote on the 26th. Although it is known that Messrs Wilkinson were invited to submit designs for presentation swords by the City subsequent to the introduction of competitive tendering for such projects after 1859, Williams’s sword is the only City presentation sword to have been retailed by Wilkinson and so its procurement from that firm, which had been active in the manufacture of naval and military swords since the 1830s, may have been Williams’s idea: perhaps for him – as for so many contemporaries – ‘swords’ meant ‘Wilkinson’. Wilkinson’s records show that the firm manufactured the blade for Williams’s sword in late October 1855: it was proved and returned from proof on the 23rd of that month. Described in the record for blade number 7360 as a ‘solid Cimeter Generals in wood scabbard’, it was clearly made for stock and probably with the standard General Officer’s hilt that was noted as having been attached to it on 29 October 1855. It was, however, returned for ‘embossing’ – by which is meant having the etched detail added to it – on 24 May 1856, the embossing added at that time being described as ‘Fancy’, which would certainly describe the etched decoration on the blade of the Williams sword. It must have been at about this time, and certainly well in advance of the end of May 1856, that the sword was assembled, complete with Hennell’s mounts, since the hallmarks on the hilt and scabbard mounts are for the assaying year of 1855–6, which ended at midnight on 29 May 1856. William Fenwick Williams was born at Annapolis, Nova Scotia, on 4 December 1799; he was the second son of Commissary-General Thomas Williams, barrackmaster at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and his wife, Maria, daughter of Captain Thomas Walker. After an education at school in Annapolis, he