Imperial Kettle Drum Panel

[Robin Lumsden]

I got this on eBay last year. It's a kettle drum panel for LHR1.

From what I've been able to find out, LHR 1 had only one band (the regimental band) with a kettle drum.

Does anyone know if that is the case?

If that entire regiment had only one kettle drum, the panel must be pretty rare - although I suppose several covers may have been made over the years.

For the last year, I've been looking for photos of the LHR 1 band to get a look at the drum 'in action', but with no success.

[Robin Lumsden]

Here's the back - the thing weighs a ton.

[Robin Lumsden]

Here's the LHR1 regimental band parading with the Kaiser in Danzig.........but no sign of the kettle drum

[Daniel Murphy]

Robin,

I would doubt that many covers were made since these would have been used mostly before the war and at parade functions. Here is a photo of a kettle drummer of the Leib Garde Hussars. The drummer is Elo Sambo who was originally from Kamerun. I hope this helps with how the kettledrums were set up and decorated. There looks to be about 6-7 panels on each drum. Oh, super piece by the way.

Dan Murphy

Edited January 6, 2006 by Daniel Murphy

[peter monahan]

" Here is a photo of a kettle drummer of the Leib Garde Hussars. The drummer is Elo Sambo who was originally from Kamerun. "

Great photo! The British Army was very big on "Turkish" instruments and musicians in the first half of the nineteenth century. One band (1810ish) had three black members two "West Indian" and one "East Indian". They often wore outlandish turbans and so on. Interesting to see that this German unit took up/kept up the practice!

Peter Monahan

[Bob Hunter]

Interesting item, Robin. I always thought that trombone players in mounted bands should get hazardous duty pay!

[Robin Lumsden]

Thanks gents.

[Robin Lumsden]

Interesting item, Robin. I always thought that trombone players in mounted bands should get hazardous duty pay!

Bob.

I think it's the guy in FRONT of the trombone player who should get the danger money!

[Bob Hunter]

That would be the horse!

[peter monahan]

That would be the horse!

Bob

Embarassing enough, as a cavalry mount, to tell yer stable mates that your rifer cut off your ear with his saber (apparently a common occurrence) but "caught it in a trombone slide" ?? Ouch!

[Bob Hunter]

Actually, my first thought is of the horse raising its head and jamming the trombone slide and the rest of the instrument, particularly the mouth piece, into the riders brand new dentures!

[Robin Lumsden]

No kettle drum here........

[Robin Lumsden]

Or here......

[Robin Lumsden]

Or here either....

[Robin Lumsden]

They didn't show it on their postcards..........

[Robin Lumsden]

Or in their barracks.......

[Robin Lumsden]

So, where.......oh, where.......

[Robin Lumsden]

can I find a photo of this little baby in use????????

His little pennant friends always seem to get all the glory.

[Robin Lumsden]

Last one......couldn't resist!

[Bob Hunter]

Wonderful pictures, Robin! Thanks.

[Chip]

Robin,

There is a picture of the parade drum banner of the regiment in D.H Hagger's paperback Almark book on the Hussars. There are only small skulls on the panels, whose main area is covered by alternating Prussian eagle and the Kaiser's royal cypher designs. The skulls are a frontal view, more like the 17th Hussar's tradition skull. They are much more ornate than your piece, which must be for field use. Like walking out dress as compared to full dress.

Chip

[Guest Rick Research]

I would say that this is NOT a "panel" for anything-- it has bullion fringe all the way up the three sides--which would be completely obscured and snarled with anything adjoining on either side--and appears very definitely to FOLD horizontally at that point in the middle, with designs that would indicate it was supposed to be visible from BOTH front and back.

I'd guess it is some form of mock/ceremonial sabretasche that fastened onto the side of a saddle blanket somehow or other. Oddly enough, the tiny little photos all seem to be of the RIGHT side of horses, and this thingum would be, I suspect, slung on the LEFT side beside the sword scabbard.

You will see PRECISELY such a shape as this on the left flank of the horse in foreground right of the microscopic dark blurry photo in post #13:

[attachmentid=22125]

so it boils down to whether the trim indicates something about rank or function or mounted or dismounted or another regiment entirely. But THAT is what this is, I'd say-- the ceremonial vestige of a mounted dispatches pouch: the "handcuffed attach? case" of the Napoleoonic era.

[Bob Hunter]

The drawing in the top right of post #15 shows a similar setup.

[Guest Rick Research]

Indeed, eagle eyes! And neither look like the one here, having some sort of tape edging ON the } bottomed pouch and a much smaller whatever it is in the center, with no tassle edging.

But if, as I expect, that is indeedy deed a SLIT at the fold on the inside so that something could be put into the folded over itself pouch's inside "kangaroo pouch,"

[attachmentid=22176]

it has to be some sort of sabretasche or other "reporting" type item. The straps don't seem conducive to dangling from sword fittings, which is why I'd lean towards some sort of thing on a horse's fittings. The fact that the skull is cloth and not massive bullion suggest something like a squadron NCO's badge of office, the way ground unit NCOs tucked a little leather notebook in their tunic fronts while reporting.

[Robin Lumsden]

Many thanks to everyone for your observations and comments.

There's no slit in this thing - although the top panel at the front seems to form a sort of 'false pocket flap' which has been sewn closed - so the ornate pseudo-reporting pouch theory seems very feasible.

A mystery item indeed!