Provenance: Colonel A.W. Baird CSI, FRS, RE (1842-1908). Father of General Sir Douglas Baird. Thence by descent.
Steel and brass. An 1857 Pattern Royal Engineers Officer’s Sword with heavy brass pierced and scrolled bowl guard; shagrin grip bound with copper twist wire. Blade etched to almost half of its length with foliate scrollwork, crowned VR cypher and palm and laurel branches to one side; and to the other, winged Jupiter's spindle emitting thunderbolts between the title ‘ROYAL / ENGINEERS’ over’ ‘AWB’ initials in gothic script for owner, the Baird family boar’s head crest and motto ‘Dominus Fecit’ (The Lord made), Scabbard absent.
This regulation pattern sword was specially designed to be carried by officers of the Royal Engineers and was carried until replaced by the standard 1897 Pattern Infantry Officer’s Sword.
Colonel Andrew Wilson Baird, CSI, FRS, RE (1842-1908) was educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen, the East India Company Military Seminary Addiscombe and the Royal Military Academy Woolwich. Promoted lieutenant in 1862 in the Royal Engineers the following year, he sailed for India in 1864 and was appointed special assistant engineer of the Bombay harbour defence works, and was responsible for ordering the buildings of the batteries at Oyster Rock and Middle Ground. After serving as assistant field engineer in the Abyssinian expedition of 1868 under Sir Robert Napier (mentioned in despatches), Baird was assistant superintendent of the trigonometrical survey of India, and conducted extensive tidal observations at the Gulf of Cutch. He took leave to England in 1870, but returned to India and continued his work in tidal observations. He was promoted Captain on 4 April 1874 and a major on 18 December 1881. Between July 1885 and August 1889, he headed the mints at Calcutta and Bombay, until he was appointed the permanent mint master at Calcutta on 12 August. He was appointed a colonel on 9 April 1896, and retired from the mint the following year, making his home at Palmers Cross, near Elgin, Moray. In 1885, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and appointed CSI in the 1897 Diamond Jubilee Honours.