A Good, Early, 19th Century Heavy-Cavalry Armour Breastplate. Heavy Steel of Musket Proof Grade, With Brass Edge Trim & Rivets

We believe there is a good chance this is one of the heavy grade steel breast plate cuirass recovered from fallen French Cuirassiers at the field of the Battle of Waterloo, sent to the Tower of London, and then transferred to service in the British Life Guards and Horseguards around a decade later, and retired from service in the Victorian era.

During a visit to the Tower several decades ago, thanks to an invitation by our friend Howard Blackmore {historian and assistant curator at the Tower} we had a discussion, amongst many other subjects, of the conversion of the Life Guards and Horseguards back to armoured heavy cavalry, after around 150 years of un-armoured service as the monarch's mounted guard since the 17th century.

It was said that those French captured heavy grade cuirassier breastplates, were later refurbished for British use, as they were noted as being extremely effective, being of battle weight, in the Peninsular War and Waterloo, against our heavy cavalry pistols and swords.

So few of those original battle weight cuirass breast plates survive that identifying them can be difficult. The battle weight examples were retired in the Victorian period, and they were replaced with dress weight cuirass, still of steel and brass mounted, but of a more comfortable light weight grade.

We show in the gallery two 19th century paintings of British Heavy Cavalry wearing their identical re-furbished breast plates in the 1820's to 1830's.

Code: 25392