Category Archives: 17th Century

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A Personal Touch – An Antique Silver Spoon (ca. 1698)

The things you find at the flea-market, eh? Secondhand jeans, old books, records, kids’ toys, jewelry, furniture, household kitsch, 17th century silverware!…

Wait what?

Mmmhmm!!

Pay attention, kids, and you really can find just about anything!

I picked up this, at-first, extremely unassuming spoon at the flea-market for slightly-more than mere pocket-change. The dealer knew little-enough about it, and a lot of that was sheer guesswork on his part. He believed it could be extremely old, made of silver, likely English…and…that…was really the fullest extent of his knowledge. And because of that, he let me have it cheap!

Looking for more information, I sought the opinion of other antiques dealers at the market, and they were all of the opinion that the shape, style, condition of the silver, and other indicators (I’ll get to those in a minute, I promise!) all pointed to this being a very, very, very old – likely English – solid silver spoon, dating to the last decade of the 17th century – something which I more-or-less confirmed from subsequent research when I got home. That being the case, I dated this spoon to around 1698. Of course, I don’t know this for absolute-certainty (nobody can, it’s impossible!) but the clues to its age are there, if you know where, and how to look.

That officially (or unofficially) makes this humble, battered, worn-out old spoon – of unknown history and provenance – to be the oldest piece of silver in my collection, and the oldest antique I’ve ever personally held! And in this posting, we’ll explore how that conclusion was reached.

Building a Backstory for the Spoon

Researching this spoon was unlike anything I’d ever done before when it comes to a piece of antique silverware, and that’s all due to the condition of the spoon itself.

By laws passed centuries ago – all the way back in 1300 – all English silver MUST be sterling-standard (that’s 925 parts per 1,000, or 92.5% purity of silver by weight). And, by law, all English (and later, British) silver MUST be hallmarked before it may be sold to the public.

To hallmark silver, you – as the silversmith or goldsmith – had to take your piece of silver (like…I dunno…a spoon!) to the Goldsmith’s Hall in London, where it would be assayed (tested), marked (certified) and then returned to the silversmith.

Because of this, every single piece of English silver or gold has a set of hallmarks on it. Typically four: A fineness mark (to prove that it’s sterling silver), a date-mark (to prove when it was made), an assay mark (to prove which assay-hall tested the silver) and finally – a maker’s mark (to prove who made it). These marks changed over time, but it’s almost always these four marks.

Here you can see the hallmarks on another piece of silver from my collection. From left to right:

The maker’s mark, fineness mark, assay mark, and date-letter.

Because of this, almost every piece of English silver may be cross-referenced with the records of hallmarks, to determine who made it, when it was made, where, and what of.

Unfortunately, in 1681, the Goldsmiths’ Hall in London burned to the ground…which took thousands of hallmark-records along with it…whoops!

Fortunately, such a calamity has never happened since, but that does mean that you can’t accurately date a piece of English silver before the 1680s.

That aside, you’d think that finding out how old this spoon was, would be easy! Right?

Well, ordinarily – yes. A spoon like this would absolutely have to have been marked and assayed by the office before it was legal to sell.

And it was.

But, 320+ years of holding, touching, rubbing, polishing, washing and cleaning have completely obliterated the hallmarks which would originally have been stamped firmly into the back of the handle, using four steel punches and a hammer! Which means that those marks would’ve been punched DEEP into the silver. But the march of Old Father Time has completely erased all the marks, wearing down the silver so much that only the merest ghosts of what were once hallmarks, are visible today.

Well – that’s unfortunate. But the fact that you can tell that the marks were once there – even if they can’t be read – is good news – because it means that this truly is a piece of silverware, and not just a tin can someone cut into the shape of a spoon. Also – rubbed-out hallmarks are not uncommon. It happens when the marks are either poorly struck to begin with, or were simply rubbed out from overzealous cleaning over a long period of time.

The Power of Deduction

It was Sherlock Holmes who said that it was “a capital mistake to theorise in advance of the facts. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, rather than theories to suit facts!”

And the man was right. So, with no hallmarks to speak of (or at least, none which were useful to us), how to determine the age of the spoon?

Well, we had to go with what we could see, and deduce from that, the age.

The first major clue to the spoon’s age was it’s mere condition. The business-end was very, very thin – the result of centuries of scraping, cleaning, polishing and washing. The left edge of the spoon (which would contact the plate or bowl, if you were using it in your right hand) was very worn, and had significantly less silver on it than the right side of the spoon. This imbalance in the shape of the bowl tells us that it has seen a very hard, long and heavily-used life – something that only happens from centuries of wear and tear.

The next thing to look at was the construction of the spoon.

The underside of the bowl has a long tang which stretches from the end of the handle, under the bowl and almost to the end of it. Early spoons could suffer from structural issues, due to poor soldering, etc. To reinforce the joint between the bowl, and the handle, more silver was added in this area, resulting in that tang, better known in collecting circles as a “rat’s tail”.

The ‘rat’s tail’ on the back side of the spoon

The presence of the “rat-tail” proved that this spoon was very old – rattail spoons were a very old style, and would’ve largely disappeared by the late Georgian, and certainly by the Victorian era. Some spoons did still have them at that time, but by then, the rat’s tail was for decorative, rather than structural purposes. This tail, because of its size and thickness, was clearly meant to be a practical feature, rather than decorative, making the spoon an older, early 1700s or late 1600s piece.

Reading the Clues

The next indicator of the spoon’s age was the presence (on the back of the ‘terminal’, or end of the handle) of initials which had been engraved into the metal – “A.H.” – clearly those of the original owner’s. On their own, their significance doesn’t mean much – we’ll never know who “A.H.” was. But the fact that they were included on the spoon is another indicator of how old they are.

These days, if someone gave you a silver spoon, you would hardly think of engraving your initials on it, would you? I mean, why would you bother? Spoons are so common nowadays.

But that was not the case 300, 400 and 500 (and more) years ago.

In medieval times, it was common for people to eat food with a knife, and their hands. Spoons were rare, and difficult to make (remember the rat’s tail reinforcement to stop the spoon from snapping in half?). Cheap spoons were made of wood. You could also get a spoon made of copper (poisonous), pewter (poisonous), or silver (expensive!). Since spoons were so expensive and hard to make, you were only ever likely to own one – and because of this, it became the custom for a family to gift a newborn child their own personal spoon upon the occasion of their birth, or baptism, since it signified the most important operation required for life – eating!

This is the origin of the expression of being “born with a silver spoon in your mouth”.

As silver spoons were the most expensive, they were considered enormous status-symbols. A person who was gifted a silver spoon carried it for their entire lives, and to prevent theft and aid in identification, the spoons were often engraved with their initials, and sometimes, another identifier (like their date of birth, or something).

This practice of carrying your personal silver spoon everywhere you went (you never expected somebody else to just…give you a spoon!) lasted for centuries, and didn’t die out until the 1700s, when forks started becoming more commonplace after their on-again-off-again use in the 1600s.

The fact that this spoon has been engraved with someone’s initials would suggest that it came from a time when personal-use spoons were still a big part of dining culture, which would further point to the fact that it came from an earlier time.

The End of it All

Yet another indicator of the spoon’s age comes from yet another stylistic choice used in its construction:

The terminal.

The ‘terminal’ is the name given for that fancy thing at the end of the handle. It’s the decorative part that makes the spoon stand out. Some common terminals are King’s Pattern, Hannoverian, Fiddleback, etc.

This terminal is known, rather cutely, as a “dog’s nose”. I mean, you can kind of see the resemblance.


Dog-nose terminals did not last very long. From the last decade of the 17th century through to the first decade of the 18th century. A period of, at most, maybe 25 years, which really narrows down just how old this spoon might be.

Hmmm…Yes? No? Maybe?

Rule Britannia

The last final, possible, nugget of information that tells us how old the spoon is, comes from the ghosts of hallmarks left behind on the back of the handle.

As I said earlier – All English silver HAS to be hallmarked with FOUR hallmarks:

The date-letter, the assay mark, fineness mark, and maker’s mark.

Of these four marks, only two of them are half-visible. The only two which would help in dating would be the date-letter, and the fineness mark. The date-letter is nowhere to be seen (or at least, not in its entirety), but one other mark is (just) visible – and it may well be the fineness mark.

The traditional fineness mark on British silverware is the “Lion Passant” – or “Passing Lion” – specifically, a lion passing to the left. If you see this mark, it means that the metal is 925 sterling silver.

However, this was not always the case.

In the late 1600s and very early 1700s, for a very short period of time, law was changed, and silversmiths had to make their wares out of what was known as “Britannia Silver”. Britannia Silver is 95.8% purity – higher than Sterling. This might sound great, except that the more pure silver is, the weaker it gets – so weak that it can’t be used to make anything, since the metal would never hold its shape. It’s because of this that the silversmiths of London protested until the law was abolished, and silversmiths could go back to making sterling silver wares again, with Britannia as an “optional extra”, if they wished.

This law lasted from 1697 – 1720, a period of just 23 years.

Britannia silver, unlike Sterling, was indicated, not by a Lion Passant, but rather, with a Lion’s Head, or alternatively, with the figure of a seated lady – Lady Britannia!

The hallmark which is still (partially) visible is large – nearly 1cm from end to end – which would suggest it was the most important one – the fineness mark.

One way to be absolutely sure about the spoon’s date would be to have it independently assayed again. If it is 95% silver, then that would almost certainly mean that it’s from the late 1600s, or at worst, the first 20 years of the 18th century, which would still make it at least 300 years old!

Concluding Remarks

So, there you have it! An antique, 325-year-old (+/- a few years) Britannia-standard solid silver spoon!

There are loads of websites and books about identifying and studying antique British silver, but the dates and information I used in my research came from the very appropriately-named…

https://www.antiquesilverspoons.co.uk/

Update – 25th September, 2023

As I mentioned in my posting, further up, the only way to definitively prove the spoon’s age was to get it assayed. And the only way to assay the silver to find out its EXACT composition is to expose it to x-rays.

To this end, last week, I took the spoon to a gold-and-silver buyer in town who performs XRF-testing – that’s X-Ray Flourescent testing. Using an x-ray florescent machine, the tester very graciously agreed to test my spoon for me.

“95%”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely. 9-5. 95%”.

A spoon of this age, in this condition, made of 95% silver means that it was almost certainly made between 1697 (when Britannia standard was introduced) and 1720 (when it was made “optional”).

Given the styling of the spoon, its construction, the wear and the personalisation, I think we can finally, almost-definitively say that it is from the end of the 17th century.





 
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X Marks the Spot: Being a Brief & Concise Examination of the Popular Views of the Golden Age of Piracy

Ah, pirates. We love pirates! I love pirates! Don’t you love pirates? We all love pirates!

But like me…you probably don’t know a damn thing about them. So that’s what this article is for. It’s a look into what pirates were and when they existed. It’s an examination of the times in which they lived, how they lived, what they did and how they did it…during the Golden Age of Piracy.

What do we ‘know’ about pirates?

Pirates have existed for centuries, even the 21st century, what with Somalian pirates being in the news of late, attacking ships and holding their captains and crews hostage and with the navys of the world’s superpowers trying to put a stop to their felonious, maritime activities. But when most people think of pirates, we think of the classic pirate – Peg-leg, eyepatch, hook-hand, bandana, boots, buckles, belts, striped shirt, waistcoat, neckerchief, pistol and cutlass. We think that pirates sailed around attacking ships, killing their crews or stealing them of their cargoes, which they would later bury on tropical island paradises, going back there later with maps to dig up their hordes of booty and then sail off into retirement.

But how much of this is true? What were classic pirates really like? A lot of what we think of pirates comes from popular fiction, like Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” and “The Pirates of the Carribean” or “Hook” and the stories of Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. We think that pirates drank rum and that they spoke a strange language full of phrases that nobody else would understand, like “Pieces of Eight” and “Avast” and “walking the plank”. They say that all myth has a basis in fact. But which facts and how many of these ‘facts’ are actually real?

Pirating Times

The ‘Golden Age of Piracy’ ran, with stops and starts, from about 1620 until about 1780, a period of roughly a hundred and sixty years. Pirates came from all countries, including Great Britain, Colonial America, France and Spain. During this era, which was occasionally interrupted by wars, outbreaks of disease or fantastic natural disasters, pirates sailed around attacking ships, stealing their cargo and either killing the crews and sinking their ships or marooning them on an island and sailing off their newer, much better ship (the one with central heating and surround-sound home-theater).

What kind of people were Pirates?

In many cases, pirates were actually privateers. A privateer was a bit like a ‘government pirate’. You were given a letter of authority (officially, a “Letter of Marque”) that said you could hunt down, attack, capture or sink any ships bearing an enemy flag. Privateers were often spawn during warfare as an easy way to deprive the enemy of its weapons, foodstuffs, ammunition and other essential wartime supplies. But what happened when the war ended? Privateers were out of a job! So the natural thing to do was to put your seafaring skills to good use and turn into the oceangoing version of a highway robber, sticking up ships on the open seas and stealing their treasures. In the days before government social security, this was pretty much the only way a sailor out of work could ensure his own ‘social security’. Like most desperate criminals, pirates had a lot to gain and nothing to lose and plenty of time to do one and not the other.

As I mentioned earlier, pirates came from all over what was then the known world, although the majority of pirates (about one third, according to my research) were English, probably not surprising when you consider that the Royal Navy was the most powerful in the world at the time. Indeed, one of the main reasons why people became pirates was to escape the harsh realities of naval life. You didn’t have to be flogged, you could get better food and you could sail to where-ever it was you wished to go.

Common Pirate Stereotypes

Pirates have been so swamped in literary and filmic fantasy that it’s sometimes hard to determine fact from fiction with piracy. So how many of the famous aspects of piracy are actually true?

The Jolly Roger is the classic pirate flag. A black rectangle with a skull and a pair of bones in a diagonal ‘St. Andrews’-style cross. It’s believed that this flag was probably created in the late 17th century, but it was by no means the only pirate flag that existed. Variations of black flags with skulls, skeletons or swords existed throughout the Golden Age of Piracy and each pirate ship and captain had his own particular design. In general, a black pirate flag (with or without its morbid artwork) was used as a sign to the enemy that the crew onboard would fight to the death and were beholden to no laws other than their own.

Peglegs and hook-hands really were part of pirate folklore. Sea-battles were fierce and dangerous affairs and it wasn’t uncommon for pirates to lose limbs or to have them so badly injured that they’d require them to be amputated later. Most pirate ships had absolutely no professional medical help onboard at all, except for the ship’s cook (the only person around with any experience with knives). The ship’s cook would perform the amputation, after which the bloody stump would be bandaged and cauterised using blackpowder. Pouring gunpowder on a bleeding stump and lighting it was a quick and dirty way to stop bleeding. The intense heat from the burning powder would sear the wound shut and prevent continued bleeding and eventual infection. Afterwards, a prosthetic limb such as a hook-hand or a peg-leg would be fashioned out of whatever spare wood, metal and leather (to act as a securing strap) that the pirates could lay their hands on.

Eyepatches were used, both for covering an eye-socket when someone lost an eye in a fight, or, as was actually more common, to preserve sight when moving around the ship. It was often dark inside ships and very bright outside. Due to the extreme contrast between the different light-levels, wearing an eyepatch was a way of ensuring that a pirate’s eyes could adapt quickly between extreme brightness and extremely low light.

“Pieces of Eight” refers to money. Traditionally, prize-money at sea was divided up into eighths and shared out among the crew accordingly. ‘Pieces of Eight’ were also Spanish dollars, Spanish gold being a popular target of English pirates during the 17th century.

Parrots are as commonly associated with pirates as dogs are with the blind. Pirates travelled all over the world so it is possible that they picked up parrots and kept them as pets during their travels.

Tropical Locations are always associated with pirates. And you can hardly blame them. After all that pirating, you would want to relax in a tropical island paradise for a few years. And the Johnny Depp film franchise would have us believe that pirates loved hanging out under the Carribbean sun when they weren’t doing anything else. But is this true? Probably yes. Pirates preyed on ships sailing around the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, sailing along the “Triangle of Trade”. Ships sailed from England to Africa to pick up slaves (stop one), then across to the southern reaches of North America (stop two) to drop off slaves, before provisioning their ships, picking up spices and cloth and other goodies, like the latest bootleg DVDs, and then sailing back to England (stop three). Hanging around in waters like these, it’s not hard to see why pirates are associated with tropical locales such as the Carribbean.

Pirates love Drinking Rum! It’s well-known that pirates (and maritime types in general) loved drinking rum and grog! Is this true? The answer is probably yes. Rum, an alcoholic beverage created from molasses, has been distilled since the mid 1600s, right around when pirates were rocking the waves. It was produced in sugar-growing areas of the world such as the southern areas of North America and the Carribbean, where pirates were known to hang out.

Rum started being given to British seamen in 1655, replacing their previous tipple, brandy, so successfully that by the 1740s, rum had to be watered down, creating the slightly less alcoholic beverage…grog. The introduction of rum was directly linked to the British colonisation of Jamaica. Sailors took such a liking to rum that when they turned into pirates, they kept rum around them at all times. Attacking ships is thirsty work, after all.

Buried Treasure! Everyone knows that pirates buried their treasure! They parked off of a tropical island, dug a hole, chucked in their gold, buried it, drew a map to its location and then sailed off, coming back years later when it became a necessity to access their little nest-egg. But is this true?


“Treasure Island” as drawn by Robert Louis Stevenson

Sorry folks. No it isn’t. History (and reliable records) says that only ONE pirate…Captain Kidd (Capt. William Kidd; 1645-1701) ever buried any treasure at all (the location is believed to be Long Island, New York). But this was hardly a widespread practice, so for all intents and purposes, no, pirates did not bury their treasure, and as Indiana Jones said: “X never, ever marks the spot”.

Pirates were all ruthless cutthroats and indeed they were. At least, to other seafarers. In actuality though, pirates were a pretty disciplined bunch. Surprising, huh? Below, you will see a partial list of rules and regulations from various Pirating Codes that existed throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.

Walking the Plank was a pirate’s favourite way of getting rid of troublesome people. Again, not nearly as common as we’d like to think. Although instances of walking the plank have been recorded throughout history, it appears that it wasn’t a widespread practice and was rarely used by pirates. It was most likely glamorised by writers and Hollywood.

There was such thing as a Pirates’ Code In “Pirates of the Carribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”, we are told that there is a ‘Brethren Code’. Did such a code ever exist? Research suggests that a code (or more likely, several codes) did exist, and that these codes were the rules that pirates were obliged to follow. Sadly, no original written documents of such codes from the 1600s survive, but copies stated that among other things…

    – Fighting was forbidden onboard ship. Any such arguments or disagreements that might arise were to be settled onshore in the prescribed gentlemanly manner (ehm…duelling).
    – Fighting onboard ship was punishable by flogging.
    – Smoking tobacco or using a naked flame without also using a protective cover was punishable by flogging (fire was a big hazard on wooden sailing-ships).
    – Thievery was punishable by marooning or death.
    – In instances of marooning, a pirate would be given a bottle of water, a charge of blackpowder, a single shot and a flintlock pistol.
    – Rape was not to be tolerated. Any pirate caught raping (or even having consensual sex) with a female faced death by shooting.
    – It was against the rules to stay up past a certain hour. All lights to be doused at 8:00pm SHARP.
    – Gambling was strictly forbidden.
    – All members of the crew were expected to have their pistols and swords (and any other appropriate weaponry) in good repair and in working order for battle at all times.
    – Any members of the crew who provided entertainment through the playing of musical instruments were allowed every Sunday off, as was their right.
    – The right of an enemy or rival captain to demand Parley (‘negotiations’) with the master of the ship and his expectation not to be harmed, was to be upheld at all times.
    – A pirate injured in the course of his duties was entitled to compensation! Loss of an eye or a finger was 100 pieces of eight. Loss of the right hand was 600 pieces of eight. Loss of right leg was 500 pieces of eight. Loss of left arm was 500 pieces of eight. Loss of left leg was 400 pieces of eight. Most pirates who fulfilled the job of ‘Ship’s Cook’ was usually a pirate who had been injured and was unfit to do any other kind of meaningful (and more phsyical) labour.

Pirates of the Carribbean

What is Port Royal?

Port Royal was a city located in British Jamaica. It was built and colonised during the second half of the 1600s. It was a safe haven for pirates during this time and pirates were even called upon by the Port’s governor to help defend the city in the case of Spanish or French naval attacks. In its time, Port Royal was famous for whoring, boozing, drunken brawls and alcoholism…charming place. There was said to be a public house, tavern, bar or other less-than-reputable drinking-establishment for every ten people that lived in Port Royal. When you consider that Port Royal was once home to about 6,500 people, that’s a hell of a lot of drinking. In 1687, Port Royal tried to clean up its act and passsed Anti-Piracy laws. Dozens of pirates were arrested and hanged for their crimes. The Port was destroyed in 1692 by a powerful earthquake, which many believed was God’s punishment for all the prostitution, drinking, gambling and vice that existed in the city. Port Royal barely exists as a city today. It was destroyed again by earthquake in January of 1907 and the city has struggled ever since.

Where is Tortuga?

Ilsa Tortuga, the Island of Turtles, is located off of the coast of Haiti, northeast of the Jamaican city of Port Royal. Colonised in 1625, it was a notorious pirate hangout during the 17th century. French and English pirates existed in an uneasy harmony here for several years. It was attacked in 1654 by the Spanish and by 1670, pirating connections with Tortuga were in serious decline. Pirates who used Tortuga as a home-base began to turn to legitimate work in the years that followed since piracy wasn’t exactly bringing in the gold anymore.

Were Pirates Really Marooned on Desert Islands?

Yes indeed they were. As mentioned above (although not in great detail), marooning a pirate on a desert island was a genuine pirate punishment of the 17th century. The offending party was lowered on a ship’s boat, rowed ashore and then the rest of the pirates rowed back to the ship and sailed off. The marooned party was given a bottle of water (or rum; whichever was more readily available), a flintlock pistol, a round of pistol-shot and a charge of blackpowder. The decision was simple, really. You could drink the water and ration it out and see how long you survived until you starved to death…Or you could load the pistol and commit suicide and have it all over in a heartbeat.

What is the ‘Black Spot’?

Jack Sparrow is given the Black Spot in one of the PotC movies. In the film, Jack Sparrow has the mark on the palm of his hand, but in real life, the Black Spot was either a black, filled-in circle on a sheet of paper, or the Ace of Spades out of a deck of cards. The Black Spot was given to someone suspected of being a government informer or a traitor to his pirate brethren.

Some Famous Pirates

So, who are some famous pirates that we know of? Captain Jack Sparrow? Long John Silver? Captain Hook? Captain Feathersword!? Pffft. Here’s some real pirates for yah…

Blackbeard!

Real Name: Edward Teach.
Born: Ca. 1680, England.
Died: 22nd Nov., 1718, of twenty sword-wounds and five bullet-wounds sustained in battle.

Notes:

– Blackbeard is believed to have had over a dozen wives!
– Blackbeard blockaded the city of Charles Town (Charleston) South Carolina and threatened to open fire on it with his ships and kill hostages (prominent city officials) unless his ransom (a chest of medical supplies) was met. The supplies were produced and Blackbeard set sail without firing a single shot.
– Always ready for action, Blackbeard carried no less than three braces of pistols on him during battles (‘brace’ is an old term for a pair. So in all…six pistols).

Captain Kidd

Real Name: William Kidd.
Born: 1645.
Died: 23rd May, 1701.

Notes:

– One of the few pirates who actually buried treasure.
– Was once a privateer for the English government.
– Tried to bribe his way out of the charge of piracy.
– Eventually arrested, brought back to England from Colonial America.
– He was found guilty of five counts of piracy and one count of murder. He was hanged in London.

Black Sam

Real Name: Samuel Bellamy.
Born: 23rd February, 1689.
Died: 27th April, 1717.

Notes:

– Called ‘The Prince of Pirates’ for showing mercy to prisoners.
– Ammassed one of the greatest pirate fortunes ever.
– His flagship, the Whydah Gally sank off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It was rediscovered in 1984.

The End of Piracy

To be fair…piracy never really ended. The classic, romantic, Hollywood swashbuckling pirate is still alive…in classic, romantic Hollywood films. And piracy is still a big threat today in the waters around the African continent. But classic piracy of the kind we associate with ‘Treasure Island’ did eventually peter out as the 18th century progressed. In 1717, King George I of England issued an amnesty to all pirates, basically saying that all their crimes would be absolved, on the condition that they stopped being pirates. Some pirates were glad to give up the life and took advantage of His Majesty’s mercy. Others stuck their tongues out at the king and went right on pirating.

 
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A Concise History of the British Secret Service

Bond. James Bond. MI-6 agent 007 with a license to kill.

Since the mid 1950s, the suave, sophistocated and sexy secret agent known as James Bond, created by the famous author Ian Fleming, has introduced us bit by bit to the world of the British Secret Intelligence Service…the SIS…more commonly known as MI-6, or Military Intelligence – Section 6.

But why is it MI-6? Why not 9? Or 3? Or 2? Or 45? What does “MI-6” actually mean and where does it come from?

This article will delve into the murky and fascinating depths and history (as far as can be discovered) of the British Military Intellgence Service, of which MI-6 is just a tiny part.

The History of Military Intelligence

Those letters and that number are magical, aren’t they? “MI-6”. Bam! We enter a world of nightclubs, cocktails, black-tie evening-dress, guns, car-chases, espionage, amazing fight-scenes and raunchy one-night stands. But MI-6 is just one small section of what was once a much larger military intelligence network. So what was it and where did it come from?

British Military Intelligence as we know it today was born in the early years of the 20th century. In 1909, the War Office in Great Britain authorised the creation of the “Secret Service Bureau”. The Secret Service Bureau was made up of a series of military intelligence departments. Over the decades, they increased and decreased in size and function. At their height, though, the military intelligence departments numbered nineteen in total. They were…

MI-1 – Codes and Cyphers. General codebreaking.
MI-2 – Geographic information on other countries.
MI-3 – Further geographic information.
MI-4 – Aerial Reconnaisance.
MI-5 – Security Service, responsible for internal national security (still operational today).
MI-6 – Secret Intelligence Service, responsible for espionage, etc (still operational today. James Bond is an MI-6 agent).
MI-7 – Propaganda.
MI-8 – Communications security and signal-interception. MI-8 was responsible for scanning airwaves for enemy radio-activity.
MI-9 – POWs, enemy & allied. POW debriefing, aid to allied POWs, interrogation of enemy POWs (until 1941).
MI-10 – Technical analysis.
MI-11 – Military Security.
MI-12 – Military Censorship.
MI-13 – Section unused.
MI-14 – Surviellence of Germany.
MI-15 – Aerial defence intelligence.
MI-16 – Scientific Intelligence.
MI-17 – Secretariat for Director of Military Intelligence.
MI-18 – Section unused.
MI-19 – Enemy POW interrogation (from 1941 onwards, taking over some of the duties from MI-9).

The Secret Service Bureau was in active duty from the early 1900s through both World Wars and onto the Cold War. Many departments were created as a direct result of the two World Wars, while others were created in response to the Cold War starting in the late 1940s, running to the 1980s. Over the years, departments changed functions or ceased functioning entirely, although some lasted for a considerable time before that ever occurred.

MI-8 was responsible for radio-surveillence during the Wars, tapping telephone-wires, scanning radio-frequencies for enemy radio-activity and helping to track down enemy agents by intercepting their messages to find out more about enemy activity.

MI-9 might be familiar to anyone who has studied the famous “Great Escape” of March, 1944. MI-9 was responsible for the aid of allied POWs and allied secret agents. MI-9 sent cleverly-disguised pieces of contraband to allied POWs and agents working behind enemy-lines, in an increasingly ingenious number of ways. Phoney aid-organisations and charity-groups were created which sent over “care-parcels” for allied POWs. Inside these parcels, which, on the outside, came from “family” and “friends”, were items such as maps, matches, compasses, knives and other escape-aids, which the allies put to good use.

MI-6 remains the most famous section of the Secret Service Bureau because of its exposure created by author Ian Fleming and his world-famous “James Bond” novels and series of films, which continues to this day. Fleming was ideally suited for writing such gripping and exotic spy-novels. During the Second World War, he had a post working for British Naval Intelligence, and his work as an intelligence officer during the war exposed him to codes and spies and espionage, a perfect background for James Bond…which probably also explains why Bond also holds the rank of “Commander” in the Royal Navy.

In the 1950s, with Great Britain licking its wounds from the Second World War, Fleming’s novels of a suave, dnner-jacketed spy who flew around the world combating evil was exactly what people wanted to read. Something exciting and escapist, so that they too, could escape from their own, dreary, rationed, postwar lives. It was because of Fleming’s novels that MI-6 has remained so famous today.

The End of the Secret Service Bureau

The MI sections began to become defunct in the years during and after the Cold War. With no “hot” war to fight (a ‘hot’ war being one with actual military engagements), many of the MI sections became useless. There were few if any POWs, there was no Germany to fight and there were few, if any, aerial engagements. One by one, the sections were closed down until eventually, only two remained. The two sections that still had a practical use to the British Government outside of an actual military conflict: MI-5 and MI-6, concentrating on internal, national security and on collecting international intelligence respectively.


Thames House, London. MI-5 HQ


Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6) HQ, London

Today, MI-6 still captures the public imagination as the ultimate secret intelligence service, this despite the fact that it is little more than a WWII-era relic of a once large and complex intelligence network. A book was published recently as an official history of the Secret Intelligence Service, covering MI-6’s history from 1909-1949. Who knows how many of those things shown to us in those glitzy Bond films were ever real?