Mackinturk

1 - 54th Artillery Regiment (old) 3 - could be 608th Pioneer Regiment, couldn't find photos of their badge, but that's the only 608th I could find

leigh, i was wondering about the extra holes. i had not noticed that the crown on the badge and the crowns on the chinstrap buttons were different. we will have to look into finding the proper badge to see if the holes match up. it is a very high quality officer's cap, with a tag identifying lord nuffield as well as nuffield hand-written into the top of the cap. we also checked with the keeper of nuffield place, who believes this cap came from the uniform they have in their custody which is missing its cap.

Thought some of you guys in the UK might find this interesting. It is a Royal Artillery visor that belonged to William Morris, Lord Nuffield, the founder of Morris Motor Company. He wore it in his position as honorary Colonel. Photos and story are up on our website: (here)

the inside. it has a leather sweatband with a padded suspension system. i haven't seen anything like it in a pith helmet. i'm guessing it needed more suspension because of the increased weight. the face shield makes it very unbalanced, with most of the weight in the front. and there are no markings inside the helmet, just the ink stamps that i mentioned in the first post.

the leather edge does show how thick the shell is, and it does appear to be made of cork. aside from the glass plate and housing on the front, the helmet is pretty lightweight. here's the top. there is no evidence of a vent hole.

this is what the tube attachment on the front brim connects to inside the helmet. notice the line of small holes. obviously this is some sort of air inlet, though for what purpose is unknown.

side view. as you can see, the brim is much smaller that usual tropical helmets.

That's pretty much what it is, though it's not quite a Wolseley pattern. I'll put some photos below. Thanks for the suggestion about the Royal Engineers museum, I will also be trying to contact them.

Hi all, We just got some new helmets in and I need some help identifying a couple of markings inside one of them. The helmet is a tropical helmet with a long flap in front and back to cover the neck and shoulders and a glass face shield. It was listed as a "Royal Engineers Special Pattern Tropical Special Companies Foreign Service Helmet." I believe it may be an early type of gas helmet. Inside the flaps though there are three ink stamps. One is "W.D. 1915" with a an arrow or crow's foot type of symbol; I think this is the War Department acceptance stamp. The others I can't figure out though; one is "17 G.H." and the other is "45 C.C.S." I don't know if these are unit markings or what. I'll try to take some pictures today to post up here. Any help with the markings or any info on the helmet would be greatly appreciated. Thanks