An English Silver Hilted Small Sword made between 1720 and 1726 by George Willcocks of London

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Price: £1,700

Ref: 52092423

Item Description

A fine early 18th century English silver hilted small sword. The hilt is of the early plain working form that replaced the rapier in the later 17th century. This  is  the  precursor of the period when the quality of English small sword design and decorative appearance blossomed and reached its hiatus in London from the 1730’s onwards. Swords of this type were often carried by military officers. This one was made by George Willcocks whose initials are stamped in raised relief inside a depressed shield on the knuckle bow terminal near the pommel and again on the pommel button.

The hilt is mounted with a convex double shell guard reinforced with raised moulded rims. The outer shell which affords most protection for the outside hand of the user is marginally larger than the inner shell and shows that the sword was made for a right-handed user. The waisted quillon block is mounted with slender pas d’ane rings of large early size reminiscent of rapier hilts. The rear quillon terminates in a swollen knop. The knuckle bow is swollen in the middle and terminates in a flattened swelling containing the panel with the maker’s initials which hooks into the pommel aperture to secure the structure. The pommel has an integral button on top also stamped with the maker’s initials at the front and is manufactured with an integral waisted ribbed neck beneath.  The baluster shaped grip is of rounded oblong cross section bound with twisted silver wire between silver “Turk’s Heads” mounted top and bottom.

The sharply tapering, hollow ground, triangular section blade displays a pronounced taper at the forte and is in fine condition with a grey uncleaned patina with consistent minor “salt and pepper” speckles of age staining all over. A copper inlaid design in the form of two flower heads has been applied to the open side at the forte.

George Willcocks appears in the guild records as a “Free Cutler” thriving from 1692/3 to 1725/6. On 4th September 1706 he was bound to the notable London cutler Thomas Vicaridge for eight years. He was sworn free of the Cutlers’ Company by servitude in 1714 and admitted to livery in 1716. He is recorded as master to a Thomas North (probably an apprentice) in 1725. His first mark (Britannia Standard: “WI” within a shield – Grimwade 3189) was entered at Goldsmiths Hall in London in 1715 and his second mark (Sterling Standard: “GW” within a shield – Grimwade 919) was entered in similar style in 1720. The Sterling mark was introduced to be worked alongside the Britannia  Mark in 1720. Willcocks’s  business was based at Wine Office Court, Fleet Street in London.

For information regarding George Willcocks’s life as a ‘gifted silver-hilt maker and sword cutler’ and for a further example of his work see Leslie Southwick’s “London Silver-hilted Swords”, Royal Armouries, 2001, page 279, plate 29. This sword by George Willcocks is in the Royal Armouries Collection, Ref IX.2241. It is more comprehensively marked with a date stamp for 1720 / 1721 and  stamped with the maker’s initials in the same place on the Knucklebow and pommel button. Willcocks died young at the age of 33. As evidenced by the date of the earliest possible date for his Sterling mark and the date of his death this sword clearly dates to the period between 1720 and 1726.

The blade length is 31.75 inches (80.25 cm) and the overall length of the sword is just over 38.25 inches (97 cm).