Patriotic Fund Sword with Scabbard, of £100 Type Presented to Capt. Thomas Baker in 1805, Together with its Belt and One Extra Scabbard

Patriotic Fund swords of £100 type are among the best known and most beautifully designed British presentation swords created during the Napoleonic Wars. Surprisingly, The Met’s Department of Arms and Armor has no example of the type, a serious gap in the collection, so this example will make an important addition to our holdings.

Between 1793 and 1815, from the rise of the French Republic to the fall of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, Great Britain was intermittently at war with France. The conflict was fought largely at sea, with the Royal Navy defending Britain’s shores and protecting its commercial trade routes in the Atlantic. The Patriotic Fund was established in June 1803 following the collapse of a year-long truce (the Treaty of Amiens. March 25, 1802–May 10, 1803), when Britain was again at war. The Fund was conceived by a group of merchants and insurance brokers meeting at Lloyd’s coffee house in London (at what would later become the famous insurer Lloyd’s of London) to provide grants to wounded servicemen and annuities for their families. The Fund also awarded ‘tokens’ as "honourable marks of distinction and of achievement" to officers in the Royal Navy who had distinguished themselves in action. Theses tokens consisted of specially designed and decorated presentation swords, silver vases, or cash, as preferred by the recipients. Presented in highly publicized ceremonies, these patriotic occasions served to raise morale and support for both the country and the Fund. Approximately 175 swords were distributed before the Fund officially stopped awarding them in 1809. All were made under the direction of the London cutler Richard Teed.

The swords were of three grades dependent on rank: the £30 type for midshipmen, £50 type for lieutenants, and £100 type for captains. The swords’ design reflects the neoclassical taste of the period and employs immediately recognizable imagery drawn from Antiquity: each sword has a hilt of gilt bronze, also known as ormolu, with a knuckle guard formed as the club of Hercules, (symbol of strength) entwined by a snake (Wisdom), the grip strap modeled as Hercules’ lion pelt, and the guard fashioned as the Roman fasces a bundle of rods from which an ax blade protrudes), symbol of unity, with naval trophies at the center. The grips are of carved and checkered ivory. Each sword is fitted with a sharply curved, single-edged blade that blued, gilt, and etched with ornament that included allegorical figures of Britannia and Hope, as well as the crowned arms and cipher of King George III; the outer side of the blade is inscribed with the name of the recipient and the action for which it was awarded. The ormolu scabbard is fitted with cast reliefs of naval trophies, Hercules battling the Hydra and strangling the Nemean lion. The swords and their scabbards were originally contained in a mahogany case containing a sword belt. While the sword’s basic design was standard for each grade, the different values reflected the amount and quality of embellishment found on the blade and scabbard. The £100 type was the richest and most colorful, with extensive decoration on the blade and a scabbard with pierced openings filled with ormolu trophies on a blue velvet ground. The present example lacks its sword knot and case, but retains the original ormolu-mounted belt and an exchange scabbard of black leather with gilt bronze mounts (neither exhibited).

The recipient of this sword, Capt. Thomas Baker (c.1771–1845), came from an old and distinguished naval family. He joined the Royal Navy as a Midshipman in 1781 and retired as Vice Admiral, Sir Thomas Baker, much honored and decorated, in 1842. The inscription on the blade reads: "From the Patriotic Fund at Lloyds to Thomas Baker, Esquire captain of H.M.S. Phoenix of 36 guns which on the 10th of August 1805 after an action of three hours never without pistol shot captured La Didon French frigate of 44 guns and 340 men, as recorded in the London Gazette of the 7th of September." This action is considered to be, not only one of the finest single-ship actions of the Napoleonic War, but, in the words of one military historian, "one of the most brilliant and exemplary cases of the kind in the annals of the British navy." The sword was delivered to Baker on March 22, 1806.