Cloth Seal, Board of Ordnance, Broad Arrow

Cloth Seal, Board of Ordnance, Image & Found by Dr Eleanor Casella, University of Manchester.
Found in Tasmania, 34mm.

Shield with the arms of the Board of Ordnance:- Azure - 3 Field Pieces in pale, or; on a chief, argent, 3 cannon balls, proper. Above this is the Broad Arrow with the initials B O to either side and beneath the shield a ribbon inscribed with MILITARY DEPOT.

This seal was added in addition to any cloth workers seals presumably for Board of Ordnance security reasons. The actual Board of Ordnance and the office of the Master General was abolished in 1855 but the Ordnance Board was reconstituted, and since 1881 there has been an unbroken succession of Boards and Committees.

The seal was found during an archaeological dig in Tasmania:- "Dr Casella had spotted three intact lead bale seals while excavating the nursery of the Ross Female Factory, a heritage-listed prison which confined British criminal women and their children exiled to Van Diemen’s Land - now Tasmania. They were put to use making convict uniforms out of cotton and woollens imported from the textile factories of north-west England. The lead seals – which prevent theft from the bolts of cloth during export down to the penal colonies –were found alongside fragments of buttons, sewing pins and thimbles."

Thanks are due to Mike Addelman, Press Officer, Faculty of Humanities, The University of Manchester, for providing a higher resolution image for this web site.