Broad arrow
The broad arrow, of which the pheon is a variant, is a stylised representation of a metal arrowhead, comprising a tang and two barbs meeting at a point.
"[2] Parker's Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry (1894) likewise states, "A broad arrow differs somewhat ... and resembles a pheon, except in the omission of the jagged edge on the inside of the barbs.
It became particularly associated with the Office or Board of Ordnance, the principal duty of which was to supply guns, ammunition, stores and equipment to the King's Navy.
[9] The earliest known use of the symbol in what seems to be an official capacity is in 1330, on the seal used by Richard de la Pole as butler to King Edward III.
[10][11] In 1383, it is recorded that a member of the butlery staff, having selected a pipe of wine for the King's use, "signo regio capiti sagitte consimili signavit" ("marked it with the royal sign like an arrowhead").
[10] In 1386, Thomas Stokes was condemned to stand in the pillory by the Court of Aldermen of London for the offence of having impersonated an officer of the royal household, in which role he had commandeered several barrels of ale from brewers, marking them with a symbol referred to as an "arewehead".
[10] An alternative theory is that the device used on naval stores and property was in its origins a simplified and corrupted version of an anchor symbol.
[17] From the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, the broad arrow regularly appeared on military boxes and equipment such as canteens, bayonets and rifles.
The prisons built by the Admiralty for the French Revolutionary Wars were equipped with mattresses and other items bearing the broad arrow: at Norman Cross Prison, Huntingdonshire, this was proven effective, when a local tradesman found in possession of items bearing the marks was convicted and sentenced to stand in the pillory and two years in a house of correction.
[19] An instance of the Admiralty using the mark in a salvage case occurred at Wisbech, Isle of Ely in 1860: "The barque Angelo C, laden with barley, from Sulina, lying at Mr Morton's granary, has been marked with the 'broad arrow', a writ at Admiralty having been issued at the instance of Peter Pilkington, one of the pilots of this port, who claims £400 for salvage services alleged to have been rendered to the vessel during the great gale of the 28th ult.
[25] The broad arrow was used by the British to mark trees (one species of which was the eastern white pine) intended for ship building use in North America during colonial times.
[26] Use of the broad arrow mark commenced in earnest in 1691 with the Massachusetts Charter, which contained a Mast Preservation Clause specifying, in part:[27] ... for better providing and furnishing of Masts for our Royal Navy wee do hereby reserve to us ... ALL trees of the diameter of 24 inches and upward at 12 inches from the ground, growing upon any soils or tracts of land within our said Province or Territory not heretofore granted to any private person.
Even though it was illegal for the colonists to sell to enemies of the crown, both the French and the Spanish were in the market for mast trees as well and would pay a much better price.
[38] In an account published in 1827, Peter Miller Cunningham described Australian convicts as wearing "white woollen Paramatta frocks and trowsers, or grey and yellow jackets with duck overalls, (the different styles of dress denoting the oldness or newness of their arrival,) all daubed over with broad arrows, P.B.s, C.B.s, and various numerals in black, white, and red".
[39] In 1859, Caroline Leakey, writing under the pen-name "Oliné Keese", published a fictionalised account of the convict experience entitled The Broad Arrow: Being Passages from the History of Maida Gwynnham, a Lifer.
"The Prison Commissioners ... wrote, on 2 March last: 'It [the broad arrow] is referred to in the Public Stores Acts in 1875, but was in use many years before that date.
