The bayonet was named after the knives made in the French town of Bayonne. It could be used as a hand-weapon or attached to the end of a musket to form a pike. More commonly however, soldiers used them for non-combat tasks such as cutting through brush or roasting meat.

The grip of this bayonet, with a small human-head pommel, dates it to the 1680s. However, the blade is much older and was once part of a dagger made in 1547. Once such ‘plug bayonets’ were inserted into the muzzle, the gun could not be fired, so by the 1690s they had been replaced by the ‘socket bayonet’, which fitted on to the barrel by means of a ring and did not interfere with the operation of the gun.

Early bayonets such as this were relatively short but by the time of the Napoleonic Wars, they had become 'sword bayonets', epitomized by the 53cm -long example fitted to the Baker rifle. During the First World War (1914 – 1918) the cramped conditions of trench warfare saw a return to shorter, knife bayonets, which are still in use today.