Presentation sword and scabbard, given to the actor Edmund Kean, November 1819.

Edmund Kean (1787–1833) first appeared as Macbeth in 1814. He kept the role in his repertoire, playing it at Edinburgh in April and October 1819, when he was seen by Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster (1754–1835), a politician, agricultural reformer and prolific author. Sir John was hugely impressed by Kean’s Macbeth, later calling it ‘one of the most perfect specimens of acting I had ever witnessed’. He and a group of like-minded friends decided to present the actor with a sword ‘as a proof of the high idea we entertained of his theatrical abilities’, to be worn whenever Kean played ‘The crowned King of Scotland ‘.

Sinclair commissioned the weapon from George Hunter and Co., an army supplier with premises in Edinburgh. It is a basket-hilted broadsword, as carried by early 19th-century infantry officers. The grip is covered in shagreen, commonly used for military swords of the period, and is protected by an elaborate guard decorated with jewelled thistles. This is attached to a blade which appears to be older than the hilt, of the type known as an ‘Andrea Ferrara’. Ferrara is said to have been a maker active in Scotland in the 16th century. This may be apocryphal, but the name has become associated with wide-bladed broadswords renowned for their flexibility and strength, and was, according to Walter Scott, inscribed ‘on all the Scottish broadswords which are accounted of peculiar excellence.’ Although the original inscription has been ground out, the name is faintly visible on the blade of Kean’s sword, one word on each side. For safety’s sake the sword is unsharpened, but it remains a formidable weapon and it is uncertain if Kean did wear it in performance. The engraved silver plaques on the scabbard suggest a display item rather than a practical stage property.

The sword remained in Kean’s possession until his death when it passed to his actor son, Charles, and thence to Charles’s daughter Marie. On her death in 1898, it was among the ‘relics’ auctioned in a sale of Charles and Edmund’s collections. The sale catalogue wrongly describes it as a claymore. The sword has had a number of owners since 1898 – in 1944 it was being offered for sale by an antique dealer in Preston – and was eventually acquired by the V&A, as a bequest, in 1980.