Backplate (body armour): HEN.M.112B-1933

Maker(s)

Production: Unknown

Entities

• Backplate (body armour)

Categories

• Armour

Description

Backplate for infantry use by the common soldier. Formed of a main plate, a pair of later-associated side-plates and a later-associated skirt-plate. The main plate is shaped to the shoulder-blades. Its lateral edges diverge upwards and outwards to bisect the arm-openings. They overlap the inner edges of the side-plates and are secured to them by three modern round-headed rivets in each case. The slightly convex upper edge and the arm-openings of the main plate have fairly bold roped inward turns. The turn at the upper edge is accompanied by a recessed border which merges at its centre with a medial recessed band that narrows towards the waist. The upper edge is pierced at its centre with a pair of lace-holes and at each of its outer ends with a pair of rivet-holes for the attachment of a shoulder-strap. A single, modern round-headed rivet occupying the inner of the pair of holes, retains a modern, buff-leather shoulder-strap. The side-plates have plain edges at the arm-openings. Their lower edges slope downwards from the main plate and then up again towards their nearly straight outer ends. Each side-plate is pierced about half way up, near its outer ends, with a pair of horizontally-aligned holes that may at one time have served to fasten the backplate to a breastplate. Attached by a single, modern, round-headed rivet with a square internal washer at the inner end of the lower edge of each side-plate is a modern buff-leather strap that serves as a waist-belt. The right strap terminates in a modern, double-ended, tongued, iron buckle attached by a single, flat-headed rivet. The buckle is decorated at its inner end with a zig-zag pattern of filed lines. Its hasp is shaped around the rivet. Fitted within the lower edge of the central plate and the inner end of the lower edge of each of the side-plates is a skirt-plate. It is attached to the main plate by a pair of modern, round-headed rivets with square internal washers, and to each of the side plates by the similar rivets and washers that attach the waist-belt. The skirt-plate is pierced with a now vacant rivet-hole a little to the outside of each of the rivets that attaches it to the main plate. The lower edge of the skirt-plate, which is deeply notched at its centre, has a boldly roped inward turn accompanied by a recessed border. Together with the associated backplate HEN.M.112A-1933

Notes

History note: Mr James Stewart Henderson of 'Abbotsford', Downs Road, St Helen's Park, Hastings, Sussex.

Legal notes

J.S. Henderson Bequest

Place(s) associated

• Nuremburg

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (1933-03-16) by Henderson, James Stewart

Dating

16th Century, Mid#
Production date: circa AD 1540

Note

South German, Nuremberg

The backplate is bright with a light patination overall, and fairly heavy pitting at the top and bottom edges, down the centre and at each side.

The crudely made side-plates are clearly later replacements. The outer ends of the skirt-plate have been cut and reworked to fit them. The vacant holes in the skirt-plate, which find no corresponding holes in the main plate, indicate that the two plates are associated with one another, although they are well matched and very likely derive from the same series of armours.