Cuff of the Day for May 17. Pre 1800's restraints from around the world.

The Topic for today:  Sunday - Pre 1800's restraints from around the world

Here is the schedule for coming days.  Take your pictures now.
18th Monday - Romer
19th  Tuesday  - Countries of the Former USSR
20th Wednesday -  Froggatt
21st  Thursday - Italy
22nd Friday - Clejuso
23rd  Saturday  Mattatuck, Maltby, and Judd
Nipper Madness Begins.   A series of days devoted to nippers, grips and come-alongs.   
24th Sunday - The US Patent List.  How many can we find?
25th Monday -  US Nippers - Not on the patent list, odd balls and copies.
26th Tuesday - British Nippers
27th Wednesday - European Nippers
28th Thursday - The Rest of the World

Pre 1800's restraints from around the world
Show us your oldest restraints, those likely made before 1800.  
The age of manufactured restraints began in the late 17th century in Birmingham.  Restraints made
earlier than 1800 are difficult to identify and to categorize.  Let us see if we can make some order
out of the chaos.  

I will start with the oldest cuff in my collection that has a definite provenance. 

The Richard Orlebar Shackle

This ornate shackle was bought at auction a number of years ago.  The English dealer said that is was found in the drawer of a Queen Anne desk.
The shackle was inscribed, "Rich Orlebar Esq. of Harrold of Bedford County."  



Richard Orlebar of Harrold was easy to identify.  An entire book devoted to the Orlebar family exists and I was able to locate a copy of the book.
Richard Orlebar was born circa 1648.  He married Jane Hatton and in 1671 leased Harrold Hall, in the village of Harrold located in Bedfordshire.
http://harroldvillage.co.uk/harrold-his ... rold-hall/

Richard died in 1690. He had a son named Richard who became High Sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1721, but this second Richard did not live in Harrold.

When I saw the cuff listed for the auction, I assumed that is was a conventional plug cuff.  There was no key.   When I received it, it was trivial to remove the
plug, but there was a surprise.  The plug was not a conventional male plug.   It was not a plug at all, it was a cap with inside female threads.  At that point
the cuff was difficult to open completely.  It was held shut by a nut, a five pointed nut.  However as received the nut was screwed in upside down and it was
quite a struggle for me to remove it the first time.   Once removed it was easy to operate by using a metal tube forced on to grip the five pointed nut inserted in
the proper orientation.


The Richard Orlebar shackle was thus made with an interesting mechanism that I had never seen before.  Both the five pointed nut and the cap screwed on to the bolt.
The cap alone would lock the cuff so with the nut in place the cuff was essentially double locked.  Quite ingenious.   The original key would likely have consisted of a five-pointed socket wrench with double
prongs to remove the cap on the top.


The nice thing about this shackle is that not only does it have a nice mechanism, we can identify the original owner and assign a probable date of 1680 plus or minus a decade.
So this is one of my favorite cuffs.
Joe

A pair of cuffs from Tibet (?, originally wrapped in fabric), a ball and chain (Austria / Hungary?) and a German bar leg shackle.

This Ball and Chain with original key, is the oldest restraint in my collection, thus far. Its roughly dated to the late 1700s and still works! The whole assembly weighs in at only about 10lbs. As far as country of origin, that has never been nailed down. Two very respected cuff experts have given me two different countries that are possibilities. I was told it shows the design features and styling of restraints from French African Colonies. But, I was also from a gentlemen who has had this style and sold them in the past it is from German descent. I have never been able to find any information, either way? I have only seen an almost identical piece, but it listed no country of origin or any information pertaining to it. I bought this several years ago through live auction. I had gotten lucky and was able to win it. Several forum members had expressed that they had intentions of bidding on it, as well, but they had forgotten to watch the live auction, which worked in my favor! The first pic is a pic from the auction site.
-Richard Knip-

Your cuff Joe may just answer a question I have pondered over for several years. I have a very similar cuff marked Geo.. Atkisson of Hilton and dated 1699!!
Seems there are two possibilities for Hilton either Darbyshire or Cambridge, I have not been able to find any reference to Atkinson. Looking at the thread it appears to be in 2 parts and slightly different so the nut followed by the cap would work.

Another favourite of mine is an old English Wedge Lock legiron. There was/is a very similar pair at The Tower of London dated at around 1650.
Made the key for it about 30 years ago and it now matches the patina very well.

We got to handle all of the locks and restraints at a nice museum in Budapest.
The tag states 1870 for this unusual arm restraint which also has a belt that goes around the waist.
I realize I am off by 71 years for this post but I found this worthy of an exception.

Ghent Castle in Belgium had these medieval (or later) restraints in their collection.
Sorry these pics were not better.
I did not have my good camera and the cuffs were behind glass.

Later on, I will be posting some great stuff from the Tower of London and some from Rothenberg Germany.  I have pics of every restraint that was on display at the time.

I have already posted som pre 1800 Scandinavian restraints in that topic.

In 2003 I bought a collection of really old restraints here in Sweden. One of the objects was this extremely heavy leg iron, It's about 15 kg.
In 2018 we visited the Swedish Prison museum, There were many interesting pieces both on display and in their storage. One of them on display is a so called
"Iron dress". The irons dress was not only a restraint but also a punishment. The heaviest iron dress is about 45 kg. At that time I realized what I bought 15 years earlier; the leg iron that has belonged to an iron dress.
Photos of the iron dress at the museum and my set.

Lars

Hello, newbie here.
I am looking at Joe's first post of the single cuff. What is the purpose of it? Was it mainly used as a padlock? Or was there another one of Joe's and then an unattached chain went on the bows of the two? thus becoming a restraint? Or was it like a marker to show the wearer was a slave?
Mike

It is a leg shackle.  It would have been used with a chain.  Two could be used as a pair of leg irons or one with the chain attached to a fixed object.

Date unknown French Leg iron? from Nils, with key from Griffin Nichols that fits it. Triangle bolt head. I suspect the key is from a dog collar and may be a repro.

An assortment of slave era bilbo's, padlocking figure 8, side key padlock, asian? shackle, old leg irons.

Not sure of where I get this but I think it was pretty recent.

I am slow to add to this because I know that what I have would give me cause to comment and I just wanted to be careful and perhaps gentle (translation: watch my mouth).

Although I consider these some of the most noteworthy pieces of my collection, they make me a little heartsick. I know where they’ve been, I know what they’ve done. They aren’t police equipment or escape artist props.

Slavery came to the Americas in the mid 1600s with early European explorers/settlers and by the late 1600s was institutionalized as a pretty good idea to earn wealth in the new world.

While widespread throughout all of the southern Americas. It was on again off again in what was to become the United States, however it became more stubbornly established in the southern colonies although all colonies practiced it at one time or another as did England and most of the European nations.

The Spanish and Portuguese became the major purveyors of human beings assisted by the English, on occasion, to an enthusiastic American market. The height of the African slave trade was from the late 1600s to mid 1700s and trafficking dwindled after that although the institution remained until 1865 at the end of the American civil war.

These bilboes and leg irons, I believe, hail from that era. In my very humble opinion they would have been used for transport across the ocean since they severely limit mobility. Made most likely by Spanish blacksmiths.

The bilboes used a hot wedge permed in to lock them. The leg irons used a hot rivet in the same way. Taking the restraints off must have been an ugly experience for the wearer.

The bilboes have some ancient hieroglyphics on them, I guess an inventory number of the wearer.

I have several other examples but enough is enough of this.







Correction: late 1500s to mid 1700s.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I am glad for Brad's post above. He helped clear my muddy thinking. If a piece has a possible Police equipment use, then I feel better about owning such a piece. I have not collected anything related to the slave trade and I didn't quite know why I was acting that way since I own lots of pieces which have chained up guys. 
However, I do have concerns about police pieces from India. I have six friends from Mumbai who were chained up simply because they were Muslims and had property to be confiscated. 
Mike

Brad. I hear you.
My 2 cents worth. We cannot carry the guilt and shame for something that happen centuries ago, Guilt and shame cannot be assigned to an object. What we must feel is empathy for the abused and down-trodden. We must never forget what has happened, never deny what has happen and try to prevent it from happening again. Unfortunately atrocities are still occurring.

Here is something that I have not seen before.
From an auction from a while ago. 
This supposed to be a slave chain link that spreads apart to add or take off a link.
The jig holds the ring while the the screw pushes the ring inwards.

Wow, Mark! What an amazing piece! In beautiful condition too!
-Richard Knip-

Padlock !

To be more precise ,a Waterpan lock for fastening boats. Hiatt catalogue page 34.. Thank you !

Sure enough!

I should get my own TV show.  

Yours is only the second one of these that I know about. I got mine many years ago and was convinced they were used to attach either the ends of Gang Chains or possibly connect two unusual Plug Cuffs together. Then the Hiatt 1907 catalogue appeared and they were listed as Waterway Locks. Not too convinced myself, think they had a surplus of them and thought what can they be used for! Anyway once the ring is attached it is virtually impossible to compress it to open it.

Photos

Thanks for posting the pictures of your "ring" Chris. Especially the side-on ones. I made of these lock many years ago but couldn't get the 'key' to sit correctly while tightening it.  Now I know why, the photos tell it all. thank again.