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Abstract
The standard issue bayonet of the British Army immediately preceding and during the First World War was the Pattern 1907. This was manufactured at different times and in varying numbers during that period by one official body, the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield, and by five private contractors. These bayonets were made according to published official specifications issued by the War Department and based on a ‘pattern example’ provided by the Royal Small Arms Factory. The specifications indicate, inter alia, the quality of metal used in making the bayonets, methods of inspection and proofing, and the required maximum and minimum weight range of the completed bayonet. However, examination of a series of these bayonets in a private collection suggested that their weights varied considerably from the mid-point values of the allowed weight ranges in the original and amended specifications (16.5 oz. and 17 oz., respectively). To establish if this was a common feature among this class of bayonet as opposed to a chance factor, the weights of other surviving Pattern 1907 bayonets were determined and compared to establish the degree of variance from the official specifications as originally set out by the Royal Small Arms Factory. Seventy-six percent of the 142 bayonets surveyed were found to be above the mid-point of the allowed weight range given in the amended manufacturing specifications, with many being at the upper end of the allowed range. This is a statistically unusual result. It is speculated that the target weight may have been deliberately set higher by the individual manufacturers to eliminate the possibility of rejection of any underweight bayonets by the Royal Small Arms Factory inspectors and so a refusal of acceptance and payment for the work.
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to Christopher J. McDonald, Michael James, Terrence Lee (fellow-collectors) and Edward Purvis (National Army Museum, London), who kindly provided the weights of bayonets in their collections. The majority of the remainder were generously provided by on-line sellers, who are too numerous to mention individually.
Photographs of a Patt. 1907 bayonet with hooked quillon but without a clearance hole (Figure (a) and (b)) and of a Patt. 1907 bayonet without hooked quillon but with a clearance hole (Figure ) were provided by one author (J. B.) and Dr Christopher J. McDonald (Department of Political Science, Lincoln Land Community College, Springfield, Illinois, USA), respectively.
Dr C. J. McDonald is also thanked for a critical review of the manuscript, comments regarding the overall importance of bayonet weight and for bringing the Text Book of Small Arms to the attention of the authors.
We are grateful also to the comments and suggestions made by the anonymous reviewers, and to Stuart Ivinson, Librarian at the Royal Armouries, Leeds, for supplying us with copies of the relevant official specifications.
Notes
1 List of Changes in British War Material in Relation to Edged Weapons, Firearms and Associated Ammunition and Accoutrements, para. 14170 January 30, 1908.
2 Specification No. S.A./319, Sword-bayonet, Pattern 1907 (Mark I) for Rifles, short, M.L.E. Specification to govern manufacture and inspection, Approved, March 9, 1908. The allowed blade length range and overall length range given here were carried over unchanged in the revisions (Specification No. S.A./319/A, approved June 6, 1910 and Specification No. S.A./319/B, approved May 8, 1914) of 1910 and 1914, respectively. The initial allowed weight range of the finished bayonet, 15.5–17.5 oz. in Specification No. S.A./319, was changed to 16–18 oz. for the revisions of 1910 and 1914. However, these considerations would change neither our overall results nor the conclusions drawn from those results.
3 Patent Application No. 14,163 for the nose-cap boss system used for attaching a bayonet to the SMLE, as issued on July 11, and accepted August 17, 1901, refers to ‘the hole in the cross’ which was a common term for the crosspiece or crossguard of edged weapons. It is, however, described as the ‘cross-piece’ in Specification S.A. No. S.A./319 of 1908 for the Patt. 1907 sword-bayonet and in the later amended versions we have seen namely those, issued as amended in 1910 and 1914. Reference works of the later 19th century use often the terms ‘crosspiece’ and ‘cross-piece’ for the part in question, but the expressions ‘cross-guard’ and ‘crossguard’ were also in common use: see, e.g. C. Boutell’s translation of J. P. Lacombe, Arms and Armour in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (London, 1869), p. 173, and R. F. Burton, The Book of the Sword (London, 1884), p. 125. Similarly, the book by I. D. Skennerton and R. Richardson, British and Commonwealth Bayonets, (Australia, 1984) likewise uses both terms, even when discussing the Patt. 1907 bayonet, as at p. 187, where reference is made to its ‘crosspiece’, and at p. 201, where they employ ‘crossguard’ in describing a ‘Prototype Wirebreaker bayonet’ based on a Patt. 1907 bayonet. As it is, a check of several modern bayonet reference works indicates that 'crossguard' is the most commonly used term today and so we have chosen to follow this practice here and throughout the text.
4 See footnote 2
5 See footnote 2
6 A. Hutton, Fixed Bayonets: A Complete System of Fence for the British Magazine Rifle (London: William Clowes & Sons, 1890), p. 125, and 131–132.
7 E. G. B. Reynolds, The Lee-Enfield Rifle (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1960), p. 212, Appendix C, Rifles and Carbines in the British Service in 1910.
8 F. Strother, The World’s Works, Vol. XXXI, Nov. 1915 to Apr. 1916, ed. W. H. Page and A. W. Page, (Garden City & New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1916), p. 99.
9 See above footnote.
10 See footnote 8
11 List of Changes, para. 16755 October 29, 1913.
12 List of Changes, para. 17692 January 5, 1916; February 23, 1916.
13 https://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/251223-heavily-stamped-p1907/ [accessed 26 June 17]; Dr C. J. McDonald is thanked for reporting the existence of this piece.
14 See footnote 1
15 Text Book of Small Arms, (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1929), p. 84.
16 See footnote 2
17 ibid., p. 85.
18 ibid., p. 85.
19 ibid., p. 86.
20 CRC Handbook of Chemistry & Physics, 59th Edn (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1978), Table F-329.
21 CRC Handbook of Chemistry & Physics, Table D-223.
22 Private communication, August 24, 2015 from International Military Antiques (http//:www.ima-usa.com).
23 I. D. Skennerton and R. Richardson, British & Commonwealth Bayonets, (published privately) (Australia: Margate, 1984), p. 191.
24 I. D. Skennerton and R. Richardson, Australian Service Bayonets, (published privately) (Australia: Margate, 1976), p. 44.
25 S. S. Shapiro and M. B. Wilk, An Analysis of Variance Test for Normality (complete samples), (Biometrika, 1965), 52, 3 & 4, p. 591–611.
26 J. Topping, Errors of Observation and their treatment (London: Chapman and Hall Ltd., 1962), p. 61.
27 We are aware of the difference between the use of σ for the standard deviation of the whole population and the use of s for the standard deviation of a sample taken from the population. The standard deviation, σ, was introduced in the discussion of a normal distribution of the whole population of bayonets made by a manufacturer. Although the standard deviations of the datasets presented here should be more correctly represented by s, we have chosen to keep the σ notation to avoid confusion.
28 I. D. Skennerton and R. Richardson, British & Commonwealth Bayonets, p. 165–8, 170.
29 ibid., p. 55, 57.
30 J. A. Chapman Ltd. was a contractor for the conversion of Patt. 1888 sword-bayonets to Patt. 1903; however, that involved only pommel & crossguard work and there was no blade-making required (ibid., p. 182). Also, Vickers Ltd. had made about 1500 of the Patt. 1913 sword-bayonets in 1917 (ibid., p. 190).
31 Student, The Probable Error of a Mean (Biometrika, 1908), 6, p. 1–25.
32 See footnote 11.
33 See footnote 12.