British Boer War 1888 Pattern Lee Metford Bayonet, 1st Volunteer Battalion, Gordon Highlanders

Unfullered spear pointed blade, wood scale grips with two brass rivets and clearance hole. Steel pommel and hilt with short quillon and muzzle ring. Black leather Land Mk I pattern scabbard with steel throat and chape.

The blade is stamped on one side of the ricasso with a crowned ‘V.R.’ over a production date of ‘2 ’98’, meaning February 1898, and the maker’s mark ‘Wilkinson, London’. On the other side it is stamped with a broad arrow, meaning War Department property, a crown inspection mark with ‘W’, meaning inspected at the Wilkinson factory, and an ‘X’ which indicates that the blade passed a manufacturer’s bending test. The spine of the blade has two further ‘W’ crown inspection marks, and each of the wood grip scales has one near the centre, between the two rivets.

The pommel is stamped with ‘V’ over ‘1 GOR’ over ‘215’. This indicates that this was bayonet number 215 used by the 1^st Volunteer Battalion, Gordon Highlanders.

The throat piece of the scabbard is stamped at the lip with ‘472’ on one side and ‘050’ on the other, the latter number cancelled by stamping a ‘1’ over each numeral at an angle. The scabbard leather is stamped with another broad arrow, a crown inspection mark with ‘E’ for inspected at Enfield, and ‘’.01’, meaning it was issued in 1901. The chape piece has a tiny inspection mark next to the staple.

The 1^st Aberdeenshire Rifle Volunteer Corps was formed in 1860, one of many part-time units formed in the national ‘Volunteer Movement’. It combined together nine rifle companies formed across the city of Aberdeen in the initial phase of the Movement in 1859 into a unified Corps, headquartered at the Guild Street drill hall. A company later joined from Aberdeen University.

In 1881 the Childers Reforms amalgamated the 75^th (Stirlingshire) Regiment of Foot together with the 92^nd (Gordon Highlanders) Regiment, one Militia and two Volunteer regiments to form the new Gordon Highlanders. The 1^st Aberdeenshire Rifle Volunteer Corps therefore became 1^st Volunteer Battalion, Gordon Highlanders. This made the battalion officially Highlanders for the first time, and by 1901 all companies had exchanged Gordon tartan trews for kilts as befitted this new status.

The battalion raised five Volunteer Service Companies during the Boer War, detachments of volunteers who agreed to serve overseas. These companies travelled to South Africa and reinforced the Gordons’ 1^st and 2^nd Battalions, with whom they saw frontline action, especially the first and largest group which joined the 1^st Battalion at multiple battles, most notably including the Battle of Doornkop in May 1900, in which the 1^st Gordons were called upon to make a frontal attack uphill across open ground toward Boer positions among rocks, which were impossible for cavalry to attack.

The regiment had a reputation for being unshakeable attackers, and Doornkop would further cement their fame. As Capt. March Phillipps, a cavalryman in Rimington’s Guides, described:

“This was, I think, the finest performance I have seen in the whole campaign... They [the Gordons] came up, line by line, behind our ridge and lay down along with us. Then, at the word "Advance," the front line got up and walked quietly down the slope, and away towards the opposite hill, walking in very open order, with gaps of about fifteen yards between the men… Soon we can see the little puffs of dust round the men, that mark where the bullets are striking... Men here and there stagger and fall. It is hard to see whether they fall from being hit, or whether it is to shoot themselves. The fire gets faster and faster, our guns thunder, and through the drifting smoke of the veldt fires we can still see the Gordons moving onward... We catch on the black background, glistening in the sun, the quick twinkle of a number of little steel points. They are fixing bayonets! Now the little figures move quicker. They make for the left side of the ridge. A minute more, and along the sky-line we see them appear, a few at first, then more and more. They swing to the right, where the enemy's main position lies, and disappear. There is a sharp, rapid interchange of shots, and then the fire gradually lessens and dies away, and the position is captured. They have lost a hundred men in ten minutes, but they've done the trick.”

“These infantry advances are the things that specially show up the courage of our troops. Each man, walking deliberately and by himself, is being individually shot at for the space of ten minutes or more, the bullets whistling past him or striking the ground near him... Knowing exactly from experience what lay in front of them, these Gordons were as cool as cucumbers. As they lay among the stones with us before beginning the advance, I spoke to several, answering their questions and pointing them out the lie of the ground and the Boer position. You could not have detected the least trace of anxiety or concern in any of them. The front rank, when the order to advance was given, stepped down with a swing of the kilt and a swagger that only a Highland regiment has.”

Soldier and war correspondent Winston Churchill, then aged 26, was also witness to their assault:

“With remorseless stride, undisturbed by peril or enthusiasm, the Gordons swept steadily onward… and at last rose up together to charge. The black slope twinkled like jet with the unexpected glitter of bayonets. The rugged sky line bristled with kilted figures, as, in perfect discipline and disdainful silence, those splendid soldiers closed on their foe. The Boers shrank from the contact. Discharging their magazines furiously, and firing their guns twice at point-blank range, they fled in confusion to the main ridge.”

The Gordons’ numerous casualties from this effort included all three officers of the Volunteer company wounded. The collective service of the detached companies in such engagements earned the 1^st Volunteer Battalion its first battle honour ‘South Africa 1900-02’ upon their return.

Those volunteers that fought in South Africa carried the Lee Metford rifle and bayonets just like this one. That said one cannot say for certain whether or not this specific bayonet saw action in the field as only a portion of the 1^st Volunteer Battalion served there. The scabbard postdates the departure of most of the detachments but leather scabbards often broke or wore out in service and were replaced as necessary, and the cancelled number on the scabbard’s throat suggests that it may have been used on another bayonet previously and swapped over.

The Haldane Reforms of 1904 redesignated the 1^st Volunteer battalion as the 4^th (City of Aberdeen) Battalion, Gordon Highlanders, part of the new Territorial Force. It served in WW1 on the Western Front as the 1/4^th Battalion from 1915, with the 51^st Highland Division. Photographs of the 1/4^th embarking southward by rail in 1914 do show them carrying the Metford, and some Territorial battalions used the Metford in France, but I cannot confirm whether the 4^th Battalion actually brought these rifles overseas or were reequipped during the seven months they were quartered at Bedford for training and preparation. Archive photographs of them at Cambrai in November 1917 show them carrying the SMLE.

The lineage of this battalion is maintained today by No.3 Rifle Platoon of B Company in the 7th Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, aka 51^st Highland Volunteers.

The blade is very good, bright with only small areas of light patination. The scabbard fittings and hilt parts have matching darker patination. The wood grips are very good with only a few very small dents. The scabbard leather is also very good, with only a couple of small dents to the front near the throat piece and a tiny scuff to the front near the chape.