The Welsh Knife 1916
 

"Welsh Knife. These were issued to machine-gunners and bombers of the 9th Battalion, the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, at the expense of Lord Howard de Walden who was serving as a major with the battalion."

Does anyone know of a wartime photograph which actually shows them being worn?

How rare are they today?

Welsh trench knife
 

This is the knife in question, have yet to find image of it in use.

Have never seen a picture of one in use, they do seem to turn up but must be considered rare I think.

Regimentals have one for sale at the moment with, what to me, seems a very high price tag.

http://www.regimentals.co.uk/viewphoto.php?x=-1

Simon.

The IWM collection desription

The "Welsh Knife" was designed in 1916 by the sculptor and armourer Felix Joubert and patented by him, as a "new or improved trench knife". It was allegedly based on an ancient Welsh weapon, although the existence of such a distinctly Welsh mediæval sword has since been disproved. An unknown, but limited, number of Welsh Knives were manufactured by the Wilkinson Sword Company, at the behest of Lord Howard de Walden. De Walden shared Joubert's interest in mediæval weapons and had the knives issued to the 9th Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers, with whom he was serving as a Major. Their blades bore the inscription "Dros Urddas Cymru" ("For the Honour of Wales"). The Imperial War Museum possesses a memorandum, dated 27 January 1920, which relates information on the knife supplied by Colonel H Lloyd Williams, late Commander of the 9th Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers (Lord Howard de Walden commanded the Battalion between September and December 1917; Lloyd Williams took command in October 1918). The memorandum states - "9th Batt'n. Royal Welsh Fusiliers. This battalion made use of a knife with which all machine gunners and bombers were always equipped. Every member of a raiding party was so armed and in one raid on the Messines Ridge two days before the battle of Messines they were used with conspicuous success. They were provided by Lord Howard de Walden and were a replica of a weapon used by Ancient Welsh tribes. They were double-edged, but were intended more for bayonetting than cutting."

Simon.

Gents, never heard of them before, thanks for sharing and information.
Regards Mark

Worth having a look at this thread: https://www.britishbadgeforum.com/fo...ad.php?t=67958

A great example in the first post

working link: http://www.regimentals.co.uk/viewpho...=74663&phqu=10

There are many really good fakes around too.

I have had some truly incredibly rare knives come through my hands over the last 30 odd years but confess not a single original example of the Welsh Sword, that alone tells me they are incredibly rare.

Cheerio,

Roy

btns,

Thanks for sorting out the link.

41st,

Look forward to seeing the photographs when you have time to post them.

Regards Simon.

Evening all.

Just thought would add that I don't think that you would be able to bayonet anyone with this knife as it has a wide blade not made for piercing, hit someone with it and you could take limbs off.

As Kevin says the scabbard is leather (pig skin) with bandage style webbing, Howard De Waldens however had a full pig skin scabbard with brass rivets for strenghting.

Another thing on some knives is that to the reverse of the blade there is Jobert trademark stamped in (about 15mm wide by 5mm, near enough), Bosley's version didn't have the mark but Holt's version did..

Ta

Jonathan

An increasingly unreliable memory makes me think of a photo of three WW1 Welsh soldiers wearing the German "Sappenpanzer" body armour, looking at a captured '08/15 machine gun as if they were examining a Henry Moore sculpture and armed with one of these Welsh "trench knives" on their belts.....

http://enews.ima-usa.com/q/QPaXUl51L...hWu1Yol2kU0itQ

One for sale at IMA

Think that photograph is generally attributed to The Irish Guards, will see if I can locate a copy on the web and post it here.

Simon

If this is the image you were thinking of I can't see any knives unfortunately.

Simon.