LATE 19TH / 20TH CENTURY

Nicholas Solntseff (1893-1976) was a Colonel in the White Russian Army. After the Revolution, he emigrated to China and from 1925 was employed by the Shanghai Municipal Police. In 1937 Solntseff became a supervisor of the Police Armoury, the first of its kind in the East. Together with Eric Sykes (1883-1945) and William Fairbairn (1885-1960) from Britain, he worked on a new type of knife for the police forces that was later developed into the famous Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife used by the British army during World War II.

Whilst in Shanghai, Solntseff was active in the Russian Cossack community. After World War II, Solntseff moved to Australia where he was active again in the New South Wales Cossack émigré community.