C. 1840 British Boarding Axe

C. 1840 British Boarding Axe – This is a circa 1840, British naval boarding axe still hafted to its original handle. Boarding the enemy’s ship was a common naval tactic that was used from classical times and particularly during the 17th to the 19th centuries when ships had to close to a distance short enough to maximize the efficiency of their relatively short-range artillery. Most British naval vessels had specialist teams of ‘boarders’ who were trained to enter the enemy vessel when possible, kill and subdue the crew, and seize control.

The boarding axe was a very practical tool. The pick-like spike was used to fix into the ship’s side to clamber up and the blade as used to cut ropes and anti-boarding nets encircling the deck-rails or smash locked doors or hatches. The flattened butt of the handle was intended for inserting into narrow gaps (say, between a door and frame, or two planks), and levering. The axe could also of course be used as an all-purpose tool and as a weapon. Boarding axes – together with cutlasses for close-quarters fighting -became obsolete in late Victorian and early 20th century naval life when the technological development of firepower meant that combat between vessels took place at distances of long distances; however, thanks to the boarding axe’s multi-purpose cutting, smashing and levering functions, it has endured as the template for the fireman’s axe still used today.

This boarding axe dates to the mid-19^th century and remains in excellent condition. Stamped on the right side of the axe head are the British government markings: WD (War Department) with a broad arrow and an additional letter N.

 The axe measures approximately 15” in length.

 The British Boarding Axe is notable for the fact that there was only one pattern for almost the entire age of fighting sail. This was the tomahawk which remained essentially the same until it was replaced in 1859 by the more robust flared blade model, although by that time the nature of boarding actions was rapidly changing.

Gilkerson identifies the oldest known dateable axe to one excavated at Crown Point, New York – the fort on this site being a naval base in the mid 1700s which was burned down in 1773. The axe in question being excavated from the site of the fire.

Throughout its long life this axe retained its flattish cross-section and side langets which made manufacture relatively easy especially in poorly equipped workshops around the world, some of which produced very crude examples.

It not known when the word tomahawk came into British military terminology but contact and combat with Native Americans clearly had an effect on the weapons carried in that region. Ffoulkes notes that War Office records state that ‘the Ordnance issued 300 Tommihawks in 1761 to the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Americans’ and it also records that the 22nd Regiment adopted it as a standard sidearm in 1784.  The navy adopted the term into everyday use and although referred to as a ‘pole axe’ officially, the name tomahawk was commonly used in ships’ manifests, journals and accounts and presumably in the sailors’ parlance of the day.

Considering that boarding axes were produced in their thousands and were carried in a ratio of at least one axe per gun very few survived the demise of the sailing ship and the British tomahawk pattern is rare today. Some of the remaining examples do not carry a makers name although they are often marked with the B.O and broad arrow mark of the Board of Ordnance. The lack of different patterns over the years means that it is difficult to date early axes and other than the Crown Point axe there is no solid evidence so far to date an axe to an earlier time.

From – An article entitled The British Naval Boarding Axe has been published in the Arms and Armour Journal, Vol 16/2, 2019