Graham Stewart

Fabulous - a pleasure to view and count yourself as very, very lucky.

I suspect the flash on the pagree of their foreign service helmets is a cut down scarlet shoulder strap and will have the title "SEAFORTHS" in white worsted cotton upon it. Hopefully someone will have a list of the other companies making up the 18th Bn, Mounted Infantry.

Definitely a mans tunic, not a females? It looks dark blue to me, an old police tunic for Inspector or above?

It's ringing bells somewhere.

It's ringing bells with me too. It has a black silk lining, which during the period would indicate for wear by officers. The police theory may not be so daft as it could be Royal Irish Constabulary.

Brilliant - saw this on the well known auction site and didn't bid, too close to Xmas and our lass would probably go beserk. Were the "Attestation" papers complete and did they contain the regimental numbers??

Mmmm - not an easy one as there's so few clues and I have none of my uniform books here with me. It does appear to me as though it's a form of officers undress jacket belonging to either the Rifle Brigade or a Volunteer/Territorial unit affiliated to the RB. These latter units which were affiliated were allowed to follow dress of the RB, but with their own peculiarities.

Absolutely brilliant and a rare piece of history. What regiment did he serve in?. As Mervyn states M.I. does indeed stand for Mounted Infantry and you would find a number of regiments coming together to form larger units as the M.I.Companies themselves were small in number compared to their parent battalions.

These units also had the distinction of introducing a new rank to the infantry that of "Company Sergeant Major". Colour Sergeants from infantry battalions seconded to the M.I. were given that rank while serving with the M.I., but on returning to their unit had to revert back to the rank of Clr/Sgt.

After the Boer War training in Mounted Infantry tactics continued for a number of years, but appears to have gone into abeyance long before the outbreak of WWI. It's only then do we see a shake up of ranks and battalion structure and the permanent introduction of the CSM.

A very unusual piece of military history and nice to see. I just wish they hadn't mucked up the date as I'm unsure if it's 1891 or 1899. I'll check when 123 Pte Charles Bruce enlisted.

Looks like he's an 1881 enlistment or to be more precise this is when the new regimental numbering system was introduced all regiments starting at number 1.

What a bloody amazing booklet - very handy to have at militaria fairs for identifying unusual FSC's. At the same time I was astounded to see that the RNF had been given to wearing just the plain GS pattern FSC, whereas only the O/R's seemed to have worn it, while the offices continued to wear their Torrin caps as illustrated in another post. I'm also aware that RNF officers may have also had a GS pattern FSC but with gosling green piping etc. Leigh - are you aware of the latter???

ACF unit I served in as teenager and subsequent photo's I've seen show they normally wear the title of the parent unit, who are their sponsors. With the CCF it's different as some schools tend to have Army, Naval and Air Detchments and so wear school titles in corresponding service colours. However the Army Det's usually follow those of the traditional white on scarlet or use the schools colours in their cloth titles, i.e. Durham School CCF army det wore white on green.

Wonder if it's CCF Naval Detachment. I've had a few RRF related CCF shoulder titles and in photo's I've seen the RN Det's usually wear the red on blue???

I'm still unsure as to why they chose to use the old pattern Colour Sgt's badge, last seen on full dress at the outbreak of WWI, for use by the Recruiter? There must be an AO or ACI somewhere detailing as to how and why it was adopted, replacing the "PPR" badge.

Thanks to Jeff for putting me right on this item as I didn't realise it was upside down and thought it sat on the top of something.

Leigh,

Very nice and very unusual. I'm particularly intrigued by the 'Tanky' officer in full dress, showing the Austrian knot as worn by Corps and Cavalry. In particular his beret appears to be of a normal pattern and not the astrakan type, which would normally be seen with the brown,red and green hackle of the RTR. Also his beret and collar badges are illustrated here as being silver and gilt and not just silver - there again I've never seen a RTR officer in full dress.

Congratulations to you both on it's completion and hopefully I'll be able to get hold of a copy in the UK. An interesting, but very difficult subject to cover as sepia photographs make it hard to identify the many units wearing them. Hopefully you were able to track down those which exist in our military museums to help solve some of the more mysteriously badged examples.

Plume holder - probably from a cavalry helemt i.e Household Cavalry/Dragoon pattern.

The "Albert" shako as mentioned in my last post, illustrated being worn by an officer of the 5th Fusiliers.

Probably worn with the last pattern "Albert" shako.

Wonder if he was one of the drummers on the list at the top?? It's an amazing piece of military history and a worthwhile future project to determine the fate of all those listed.

Sorry Jeff - no relation at all to Pte Edward Neal. All I can tell you about him was this he was born & resided in Ashington and enlisted in Newcastle in August 1914. His actual regimental number was infact 3/8472, which means he originally enlisted into the 3rd(Reserve)Bn,NF. He was then posted to the 9th(Service), 12th(Service), 'A'COY,23rd(Service)Bn's,NF, before being reposted back to the 12th Bn, with whom he was killed. He was known to have firstly wounded on the 5th July 1916 while serving with the 9th Bn and possibly again in September of the same year.

Ashington itself was infact the largest colliery village in the world at one time.

If you look closely between the Colours you'll see that the list was complied at Ferozepore, India in 1905 and not 1903. Hopefully the Battalion Nominal Roll still survives and all of these lads could be given relevant regimental numbers. Also under the terms of enlistment for the infantry of 12yrs(7yrs with the Colours & 5yrs with the Reserve), a good few may have seen service during the Great War.

Looks like an officers bronze cap badge of the Army Pay Corps

This is just a sample of Volunteer rank as worn by Robert Patrick - Newcastle Volunteer Artillery. Unfortunately Vista hasn't got a programme that would allow me to put in the full photo.

Going back to post 47 - The crown above three chevrons as worn by infantry Clr Sgts pre-1914/15 with SD & KD was the same size as that worn by the 'Sgt Major' on his cuff i.e. very large. On the introduction of the CQMS the crown above three chevrons was retained, but the crown much reduced in size. The CSM adopted the old Sgt Majors crown in the large size in bullion & worsted but slightly smaller in brass and only on the lower right cuff.

British Army rank can be a minefield in it's own right, due to the changes over the centuries. The ranks covered here are for Regulars, but the ranking for senior ranks within the Volunteers and Territorials are even harder to get your head around. Then you have to deal with '4' not '3' chevrons either point up or down depending on your appointment within the battalion.

A typical Medal Roll entry - alas though there was another two battalions to show, but I had to cut the file right back to attach it here.

While I'm not into the RWF and it's individual battalions, it looks as though your man has been drafted overseas directly from the 23rd Bn,RWF, possibly to another battalion and as such is entitled to a BWM & Victory. You may probably have seen his Medal Index Card, but what you need to see is his Medal Roll Sheet and also run a check for any service records that may have survived.

Medal Index Cards in reality are no more than that, an indexed reference card leading you to the relevent page of the Medal Rolls, where you'll find him listed.

The Medal Rolls themselves only record the unit's serving overseas with and not units served at home, but in many cases you'll find units listed that never served abroad and this is simply because the draft from a Reserve unit has been sent directly to the front and as such the unit you arrive is the one recorded in the Rolls.

Leigh is right with his second guess of South African Infantry, once it's downloaded and blown up. He's also right as regading the rank as pre-1915 single crowns worn on both lower cuffs was the rank of the infantry WOI "Sergeant Major". It wasn't until post-1915 that the rank of "Regimental Sergeant Major" was to be found in the infantry, as well as CSM and CQMS.

All very complicated, but modern army heads have to come off when dealing with the Army at the turn of the last century.