Backplate (body armour): HEN.M.117B-1933

Maker(s)

Production: Unknown

Entities

• Backplate (body armour)

Categories

• Armour

Description

Backplate, for infantry use. Formed of a main plate, a pair of later-associated side-plates and a later associated skirt-plate. 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 very slightly 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 right side-plate is pierced with a rivet-hole just above the central and lowest of these rivets, and the left plate is pierced with a rivet-hole just to the rear of the lowest of them. Each side-plate is fitted mid-way along its lower edge with a modern waist-belt secured by a round-headed rivet. The upper edge of the main plate is nearly straight, rising to a low cusp at its centre. It and the arm-openings have file-roped inward turns accompanied by recessed borders. The border at the neck descends as a small V-shaped projection at its centre. A modern round-headed rivet with an octagonal internal washer is fitted at each shoulder. The left one retains a fragment of a modern, internal shoulder-strap. 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 three modern, round-headed rivets, the right of which is also the lowest of those that attach the right side-plate to the main plate. The skirt is pierced with a rivet-hole just to the inside of this rivet and just to the outside of the left rivet that secures it to the main plate. The lower edge of the skirt plate projects downwards as an obtuse point at its centre and at either side. It has a file-roped inward turn accompanied by a recessed border.
The vacant rivet-holes in the side-plates and the skirt-plate, which find no corresponding holes in the main plate, indicate that these elements have been associated with one another. This view is supported by differences in the roped edges of the plates, and by the fact that the left side-plate is more heavily pitted than the others. Together with the breastplate HEN.M.117A-1933

Notes

History note: A label preserved with the backplate suggests that it was acquired from the dealer Fenton & Sons, Oxford Street, London. 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#
Circa 1550 CE - 1560 CE

Note

South German, Nuremberg

The backplate is bright with a light patina overall, and some deeper pitting on the left side-plate.