A Pair of Fine and Rare Mid 19th Century Naval Boarding Pikes by Wilkinson of 27 Pall Mall

These fine boarding pikes are unusual for a number of reasons. The heads (langets) are stamped with the name of the important manufacturers Wilkinson of 27 Pall Mall, London. Of four sided design, this means that these pikes pre-date the so-called 1888 model of pike which was the last one adopted by the Royal Navy before these pieces were phased out. Despite no new designs being manufactured for more than half a century, pikes continued to be sold and were carried on Royal Navy vessels until 1905.

Our pikes have bamboo shafts, also highly unusual and very visually interesting.

Boarding pikes were used in times of combat to attempt to board or to ward off attacks from another vessel. This painting of Nelson at Cadiz in the 1790s in the collection of the Maritime Museum in Greenwich illustrates a Spanish sailor using a boarding pike in the centre ground.

https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-14381

The Wilkinson Sword Company

 One of the most famous of all manufacturers of razors, cutlery and edged weapons, the Wilkinson Sword company can trace its history to the foundation of the firm of Henry Nock and Co. in 1772. After Nock’s death in 1804, the company was continued by his foreman James Wilkinson and went from strength to strength. In the 1820s James’s son Henry took over the business and it traded as Wilkinson and Son until becoming Wilkinson Sword in 1891.

In 1824 the firm took its famous premises at 27 Pall Mall next door to the Board of Ordnance-a masterstroke on the part of the Wilkinson company. At this stage the firm largely concentrated on firearms but decided to focus more on swords and cutlery as government contracts to produce loaded weapons grew somewhat scarce. This laid the foundation of a spectacularly successful British company which lasted in this form until 2005, though the brand survives today as razor makers. Wilkinson were renowned for the quality and durability of their products which were utilised by both the army and navy in Britain and in many other countries worldwide.

An 1870 catalogue issued by the firm states that amongst the items that could be supplied were ‘cannon, rifles, muskets, bayonets, pistols, cutlasses, boarding pikes, tomahawks…and every kind of apparatus and material required’.