British Pattern 1892 Cavalry Officer's Sword and Scabbard : Lieutenant F W Mann, Victorian Mounted Rifles

British Pattern 1892 Cavalry Officer's Sword and Scabbard. The hilt is sheet steel with rolled edges and engraved with a large crown above the letters 'VMR'. The grips are black checkered pressed-leather fitted to the tang with five rivets. The straight blade has a single fuller to each side and is etched on the right side with a floral pattern and the VMR cypher. The ricasso has the manufacturer's name of 'HENRY WILKINSON, PALL MALL, LONDON'. The scabbard is leather covered steel with a brass chape and frog strap near the throat for fitting to a Sam Browne belt.

The sword is associated with Lieutenant F W Mann, Victorian Mounted Rifles. Frederick Wollaston Mann was born in Mount Gambier, South Australia in 1869. During the Boer War he was commissed as a lieutenant in the 4th Victorian (Australian Imperial Regiment) Contingent and saw 16 months active service. He was wounded in the shoulder at Hartbeesfontein on 16 February 1901 and returned to Melbourne on 1 November. Having lost his seniority with his previous employer, the Crown Law Department, Mann set up as a barrister in Selborne Chambers. On 22 July 1919 he was appointed to the bench of the Victorian Supreme Court. Chairman of the Court of Industrial Appeals in 1931-33, he was knighted in June 1933. On various occasions between 1923 and 1934 he was acting chief justice and when Sir William Irvine retired on 1 October 1935 Mann succeeded him. On 12 May 1936 he became Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria. In 1941 Mann suffered a great personal loss when his elder son, Lieutenant James Gilbert, was killed in action in Crete. Having been chosen as Victorian Rhodes Scholar for 1935, James won brilliant firsts and the Vinerian Scholarship at Oxford, and was regarded as the outstanding young lawyer of his generation. He served with the Royal Australian Artillery. During the evacuation of Crete, he gave up his life raft to an exhausted man after the ship evacuating his men was bombed. Rather than overload other rafts, he swam out to sea. Sir Frederick retired as Lieutenant-Governor in May 1945. He died on 29 May 1958.