NAM.2001-06-16-1

Pattern 1796, Heavy Cavalry Sword, 1808-1818. Carried by Capt (later Lt Col) William Tyrwhitt-Drake, Royal Horse Guards. Blade is straight, flat backed, double edged with a hatchet blade. Wooden grip bound with cord and covered with leather. Wrought iron or steel ‘ladder’ guard, broadened out at the base into a pear shaped disc with a reinforcing inside plate, and engraved with the owner’s name. An affectation of many Household Cavalry officers was that their swords remained in bare metal, without maker’s names or regimental inscriptions. Of the three Household Cavalry regiments there is only pictorial evidence for Pattern 1796 being carried by the 2nd Life Guards.

Waterloo, Battle of, 1815 (Napoleonic Wars, Waterloo 1815)