1st Pattern 42nd Glengarry

[W.Unland]

Hello,

I have had this Glengarry since the early 1970's and have just come across it again. I would like to confirm which era it is from. My assumption has always been that it dates from the Victorian era, but these are not my area of interest so any input would be appreciated.

The material is a heavy, almost homespun type wool, originally dark blue but faded to gray with natural color areas showing through. The cap badge is 3 piece silver and brass.

[attachmentid=63462]

The cap badge.

[attachmentid=63463]

The interior showing that this badge has never been removed.

[attachmentid=63464]

[W.Unland]

Here is a view of the top, which has not faded so badly and shows closer to the original color.

[attachmentid=63465]

And lastly the ribbon attachment.

[attachmentid=63466]

Anyone that might be able to confirm the identification of this cap is invited to do so.

Thank you,

William Unland

[Mark Holden]

William,

The Badge is certainly Victorian and looks like a two or three piece NCOs version. As for the Glengarry I cant help you as Scottish Regiments are not my area(I only know about the cap badge as I saw one today at ashow).

regards

Mark

Here is a view of the top, which has not faded so badly and shows closer to the original color.

[attachmentid=63465]

And lastly the ribbon attachment.

[attachmentid=63466]

Anyone that might be able to confirm the identification of this cap is invited to do so.

Thank you,

William Unland

[W.Unland]

Thanks,

The badge is indeed 3 piece construction.

Regards,

Bill Unland

[leigh kitchen]

The badge has the flat topped Victorian Crown, so at face value was worn from 1881 (post Cardwell Reforms and the demise of numbers in favour of names) but NCOs of the Black Watch carried on wearing the old style badge with "42" in the centre instead of St Andrew for decades after.

Kipling & King 497 shows the numbered badge with flat topped Victorian Crown, KK 656 the version with St Andrew in the centre & the post Victorian Kings Crown.

John Gaylor refers to the badge with Victorian Crown and "42" as being worn prior to 1881, and that it continued to be worn post 1881 by Sergeants of the 1st Battalion, with a Kings Crown version appearing in 1926.

KK & Gaylor state that the yellow metal was gilded.

Is this badge multi ? part or are the different components sweated together?

They?re always stated to be multi part badges held together with split pins, I have a Kings Crown St. Andrew centre version that has the different metals sweated together, I?ve always viewed it as a fake.

I can?t tell from the photos whether I?d view the badge & glengary you are showing as genuine but then I?m lousy working from photo

[Mark Holden]

Bill,

I am sure you have done this already but you could see if the cloth behind the badge has not worn or faded to the same extent as the rest of the body. It won't help date the cap but will at least indicate that the badge has been fixed to it for some period of time.

regards

Mark

The badge has the flat topped Victorian Crown, so at face value was worn from 1881 (post Cardwell Reforms and the demise of numbers in favour of names) but NCOs of the Black Watch carried on wearing the old style badge with "42" in the centre instead of St Andrew for decades after.

Kipling & King 497 shows the numbered badge with flat topped Victorian Crown, KK 656 the version with St Andrew in the centre & the post Victorian Kings Crown.

John Gaylor refers to the badge with Victorian Crown and "42" as being worn prior to 1881, and that it continued to be worn post 1881 by Sergeants of the 1st Battalion, with a Kings Crown version appearing in 1926.

KK & Gaylor state that the yellow metal was gilded.

Is this badge multi ? part or are the different components sweated together?

They?re always stated to be multi part badges held together with split pins, I have a Kings Crown St. Andrew centre version that has the different metals sweated together, I?ve always viewed it as a fake.

I can?t tell from the photos whether I?d view the badge & glengary you are showing as genuine but then I?m lousy working from photo

[W.Unland]

Hello,

The cloth behind the badge is NOT faded, and is the dark blue of the top.

The badge itself is three piece, and the pieces are held together by split pins not soldered.

The "brass" does appear to be gilt, the remainder silver. and the "scrolls" are seperate pieces held on by pins visable from the reverse.

[attachmentid=63679]

I honestly do not think this badge has ever been off of this cap.

Thanks again,

Bill Unland

Edited December 4, 2006 by W.Unland

[Mark Holden]

Bill,

I am pretty sure that some Scottish Regiments wore no cloth behind the badge, I just can't recall if the Black Watch is one of them. With all the evidence I would say you have an original cap and very nice badge I just don't have the knowledge to date it.

regards

Mark

Hello,

The cloth behind the badge is NOT faded, and is the dark blue of the top.

The badge itself is three piece, and the pieces are held together by split pins not soldered.

The "brass" does appear to be gilt, the remainder silver. and the "scrolls" are seperate pieces held on by pins visable from the reverse.

[attachmentid=63679]

I honestly do not think this badge has ever been off of this cap.

Thanks again,

Bill Unland

[leigh kitchen]

It's the badge worn by sergeants of the 42nd. They amalgamated with another numbered regiment in 1881, and "lost" the number in favour of a name, the new regiment adopting St Andrew as a centrepiece to the badge instead of the number 42.

The 42nd had the lowest number within the union of the two regiments & thus being the senior of the two they became the 1st Battalion of the new, named regiment.

They chose to keep the old 42 badge for their sergeants.

It appears that this tradition continued past the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 (after which the crown design should have changed to a sloping sided crown - the Tudor Crown also known as the King's Crown as it used during the reigns of Kings Edward VII, George V, Edwards VIII & George VI up until about 1952).

The variety of Victorian Crown used on the badge is not the usual "big eared" version of Queen Victoria's Crown but a lesser used design worn by a few units and is not dissimilar to the King's Crown, although they are different. This may have assisted in extending the badges life beyond circa 1881 as to the flat topped Victorian Crown could be easily mistaken for the correct King's Crown.

It is possible that the regiment did'nt want to dispose of stocks of expensive badges (being multi - part with gilded components), although no doubt they would have wanted to maintain their "42" in use.

It appears that about 1926 there was an issue of the "42" badge with the King's Crown - perhaps authority had caught up with the battalion (although if that was the case I'd have expected the "42" to have been replaced by St Andrew in the centre as well as the crown to be changed), perhaps the supply of old flat topped Victorian badges ran out & the dies were no longer available or it was just thought appropriate to change to a King's Crown at last.

At some point a version of the badge with King's Crown & St Andrew in the centre has been produced - perhaps this had been worn post death of Queen Victoria by the sergeants of the 2nd Battalion?

About 1936 (I think) the title of the regiment was changed from The Royal Highlanders (Black Watch) to The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) which meant that the names on the two sets of scrolls needed to be swapped around.

Instead of this being done it was decided to dispense with the scrolls - hence the versions of the regiments badges without the name scrolls - however instead of the patterns with scrolls being replaced they carried on in use and appear to have been worn through WWII and in some cases into the 1950's.

Absence of the Sphinx & "EGYPT" on a Black Watch badge means that that badge was not worn by a Regular Army Battalion.

As an aside, similar badges to those of the Black Watch were worn by The Glasgow Highlanders, who were nothing to do with The Black Watch, (being a Territorial Force Battalion of a completely different regiment, The Highland Light Infantry), & by The Highland Cyclist Battalion, another T.F. unit the badges of these units lacked the sphnx & "EGYPT".

Your badge is that of Sergeants of the pre 1881 42nd, which continued in use by sergeants of the 1st Battalion Royal Highlanders (Black Watch) following the 42nd's amalgamation into that regiment in 1881, and appears to have been worn up until at least 1926.

A quick edit - when I said in my previous post that I had a King's Crown version of this badge with St. Andrew in the centre but that I thought it was a fake, I did'nt mean that a badge of this design did'nt exist as a genuine badge, just that the example I own is possibly a fake.

_______________

Nothing Significant To Report.

Edited December 5, 2006 by leigh kitchen

[Jim Maclean]

I think the BW wore their badge on a black rosette, might be wrong though.

Looks pretty good to me. Well worth taking apart and killing that awful verdigris.

[Peter_Suciu]

Very interesting information. Thank you for posting.

[leigh kitchen]

I think the BW wore their badge on a black rosette, might be wrong though.

Looks pretty good to me. Well worth taking apart and killing that awful verdigris.

What is it about matelots & verdigris? Always polishing the old brass monkeys or the powder monkeys or whatever.

I don't know anything about thes glangarys, but I think that the reference to "1st pattern glengary" may be to it's wear in the era when they were a general item of issue headgear (the 1870's?) & had not yet been restricted to Scottish units - I'm not sure that the black bow was worn at that time by even Scottish units, but I may very well be wrong on that.

[leigh kitchen]

I've just ahd a flick through Mike Chappell's "The British Soldier in the 20th Century 2, Field Service Head Dress 1902 to the present day" (Weesex Military Publishing, 1987) - a num,ber of little colour illustrations of examples of the glengary as worn by some different units with khaki Service Dress circa WWI - that of the Black Watch is shown without a black bow.

[Stuart Bates]

The 42nd regiment and the 73rd (Perthshire) combined on 1st July 1881 to form The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders).

stuart