Graham Stewart

The roll collar of the mess dress jacket showing the gold wire grenades and silver St.George & Dragon.

Nice shot showing the silver and gilt buttons. These earlier pattern mess dress jackets were tailored with botton holes for the jacket to be closed.

A mess dress jacket named to Major W.W. Ayton and dated 8th August 1939. W.W. Ayton was educated at Durham School and a member of the School's Cricket Team. On leaving school he joined the T.A. and was commissioned into the 6th Bn, DLI, becoming a Lieut on 24th March 1937. By 1940 he had opted to join the Regular Army and was commissioned into the RNF, as 2nd/Lt on 1st Jan 1940 and became a Lieut on 1st July 1941. Haven't found anything else apart from the fact he was h.p. listed(?) with ill health on the 22nd Jan 1944 and retired 18th March 1958.

Again the shoulder strap would be the same as those worn by regulars, except that regular units were still wearing embroided titles. The T.F. appear to have gotten their jackets with plain shoulder straps allowing metal 'T' titles to be worn.

The rear of the jacket has a skirt of the same pattern as those worn by regulars, although the buttons are the white metal General Service pattern.

By 1910 the scarlet jacket, with gosling green facings was being introduced into the 4th Bn, NF(TF) of which this is one. Collar badges were worn in white metal and since this photo was taken the badge seen here has been paired up. Being a T.F. battalion the buttons were of white metal too and so would the shoulder titles, but I believe by 1914 gilding metal titles had been introduced for wear by the T.F. Note - The former wearer of this jacket wore three "efficiency" stars indicating he had been returned efficient, no less than 12 times(1star = 4 returns), but the ruling stated that it need not be consecutive returns. Had the individual worn this jacket from 1910-14 and had been returned efficient four consecutive times, then the two previous stars could have been awarded some 8years earlier. This would make the wearer and old volunteer, who possibly enlisted around 1901/02.

The round end shoulders strap complete with scarlet piping and the original shoulder title holes, the likes of which remain elusive.

The rear of the jacket doesn't have scalloped skirt piping, with six buttons, but two straight scarlet piped lines at the top of which are the sole remaining R.V. buttons.

My 1909 pattern jacket to the 4th Bn, Northumberland Fusiliers. This battalion continued with their Rifle Volunteer traditions post 1881 as the 1st V.B., NF and on the formation of the Territorial Force in April 1908 the battalion was split into the 4th & 7th Bn's. The 4th Bn continued to wear their traditional Rifle Grey, with scarlet facings which they continued to wear until around 1910, when they too adopted scarlet. No collar badges have been worn with this tunic and the shoulder titles would have been blackened brass "T4/Bomb/NF", as opposed to the scarlet embroided "1V/Bomb/NF" pre-1908. The buttons on this jacket were the commom blackened brass Rifle Volunteer pattern, but Kings Crown over the stringed bugle rather than a QVC. The original buttons remain on the skirt, but the buttons down the front of the jacket are those of the Kings Royal Rifles, which suggests that the jackets may have been returned to storage and re-used by another unit continuing to wear the Rifle Grey, who were affiliated to the KRR.

Top one - Victorian as worn by Brigadiers and Colonels.

104th Bengal Fusiliers, became the 2nd Bn, Royal Munster Fusiliers in 1881.

Bottom one identified correctly as "Civil Defence" - certainly post WWII up until 1953 as it's a Kings Crown. The CD continued well into the 1960's, but I'm unsure when it was stood-down.

Top one - Victorian Royal Navy - the gilt finnish would indicate an officer's Bottom one - Victorian General Service - worn by other ranks

Thanks TI - it's always nice to hear from guys who appreciate what other collectors have in their collections. This last jacket has always been a curiosity to me and raking around in the inside jacket pocket(on an Isaac Walton name tag) I found that the owner was 13544 M.RODHAM and dated 24/11/1953. The collar also has a cloth tag inside for hanging the jacket on a peg, which says "Isaac Walton & Co. Ltd - London, York, Newcastle". As you'll appreciate this is well out of the ordinary and so I still wonder if the owner had some alterations carried out? On top of which you have both the para wings and tanky badge. The medal ribbons being the Defence & 39/45 War, with a GSM? My feeling is that the para wings and GSM were awarded post 1945 as a regular Para, but the other two may have been for Home Service only, which may suggest a young soldier of 18yrs(or under) serving with either the T.A. or Home Guard. Once he'd done his three as a regular he would of course be free to re-enlist in the T.A. and so went back to 43rd RTR, which converted back to 6th Bn, RNF. Anyway it's still a nice item to have.

Actually it isn't blue at all, but what we would determine as dark "bottle green", which is so dark a hue, as to be almost mistaken for black/very dark blue. It's a shade very difficult to describe unless you have seen these really dark green bottles used at the turn of the century in the UK. I certainly wouldn't describe the jacket as blue, not in the same sense as for No.1 Dress "Blues", which again is more on the black than blue side and for me it's Rifles any day of the week. Again all of those units in India, with KRR affiliations(and more importantly dress) would qualify - certainly Gurkha Rifles units spring to mind. I believe the Army List for Indian units will describe who and who aren't affiliated to the KRR.

DR's 1911 - again mentioning that jackets are made in proportion to height, which is which you only have four set's of frogging.

The jacket as described in Dress Reg's 1900. Having looked at your jacket on the other Forum I would say it's Rifle Green as opposed to blue in colour. Note that the jacket in DR's is for an officer 5ft 9ins tall and jackets would be then produced in proportion to the height of the officer - i.e. a smaller officer would possibly require less frogging!!

I think you'll agree, that apart from the bosses that the jackets look very much the same, but I'll also post the rest of the description from Dress Reg's 1900.

I noted the discussion on the other Forum and have to say Frogsmile may be on the right track. This pattern coincides exactly with the photograph and description in Dress Regulations 1900, for the pattern 'Patrol Jacket', as worn by "Rifle" regiments. The red facings obviously pointing to the Kings Royal Rifles "and it's affiliates". I'll post more as and when time allows.

When originally purchased only the Sgt stripes, medal ribbons and buttons remained. However it was noticable that there had one time been Para wiings and a tanky arm badge attached. Seeing it only had holes for single bladed collars, I knew that the former owner had at sometime served with either 43rd or 45th RTR. The collar badges were the first to be replaced, although it was a while before I had a pair of these unique collars. The tanky arm badge and para wings were replaced as well and so it'sback to it's former glory, although sadly slightly mothed.

I've added a close up of the collars, because thet are unusual themselves. Originally the owner had also served with either 43rd or 45th Royal Tank Regt and the jacket collar at one time held the single bladed RTR collar badges. On conversion back to the infantry role someone had the bright idea of reworking the rear of the RNF collar badges and attached a single blade to the back of the bomb, which allows the badges to fit perfectly. I also have a feeling that the jacket collar has been removed from an older possibly 37 pattern jacket and retailored into this later pattern jacket as seen in the slight colour difference and tailors stitching.

All the buttons are anodised, but the collars are bi-metal and the piping on the shoulder strap gosling green.

Other ranks No.1 Dress(blue's), belonging to a Sgt of the 6th Bn, RNF.

Another one of my favourites. A privately produced smooth BD blouse(plus I have the trousers) belonging to Major J.M.S. Coates, O.B.E., 5th(Gosforth)Bn, Northumberland Home Guard. Coates became a Major in the Bn on the 21st November 1941 and as can be seen he was previously a WWI veteran, with a MID.