A 19th Century British soldier

[Brett Hendey]

Based on his uniform and rifle, can anyone suggest  dates for when this British soldier served?  It is exhibited in a museum devoted to the 45th (Nottinghamshire) Regiment in the 1850's. 

Brett

[QSAMIKE]

With the way he is dressed he looks like Mounted Infantry and is possibly Boer War........  The regiment did have a Mounted Infantry section during the Boer War........

Mike

 

[Bayern]

Gentlemen : First Boer War ? the weapon looks like a Martini Henry carbine. not as a Lee Metford one .

[QSAMIKE]

The picture is a studio photo so anything could be used as props......  I do not think that they had this style of photos in the 1850's....

[Brett Hendey]

Mike & Bayern

Many thanks for your comments.  I also felt that the soldier must have been post-1850's.   For many months now, I have kept busy gathering information on the 45th Regiment during the 16 years (1843 - 1859) it spent in the Colony of Natal, and I have yet to find any depictions of its men in the uniforms of the period.

Regards

Brett

[Dan137]

It looks to me like he's wearing the 1880/90s 5 button frock in blue with white facings. The pointed cuffs are wrong for a British cavalry unit and if he were a British infantryman the frock would be red.  The Army Service Corps wore blue with white facings but they had a double stripe on the breeches.  I think he's a member of a S African volunteer unit - not a British regular at all.

[Brett Hendey]

Dan

Thank you for bringing me back to earth!   I have spent so much time recently learning about the 45th and other British regiments in mid-Victorian times, it never occurred to me that the soldier could have been a Natal Colonial.  That indeed is what he was, and his regiment was almost certainly the Natal Carbineers, a mounted infantry regiment armed with the Martini Henry carbine, just as Bayern surmised.  The illustration below is from the history of the NC by the Rev John Stalker, which was published in 1912.  Adding to my embarrassment is the fact that I use the helmet badge of this regiment  as my avatar.  During the Anglo-Zulu War (1879), the men in the photograph below would have worn this badge on a white helmet.

Than you again to Mike, Bayern and Dan.

Regards

Brett

 

The illustration below, which was painted by the late Andy May, shows the active service helmet worn by the Natal Carbineers during the Anglo-Zulu War.   Although it is not clear in this picture, the helmet badge is that shown in my avatar.

Brett