First Life Guards

Privates, 1845

This is a beautifully painted but fanciful depiction of the Life Guards on patrol. The two privates providing the advance guard in the forground are accurately observed but wearing full dress which is reserved for cremonial duties. On exercise, the buckskin breeches and highly polished jackboots would be replaced by blue overalls with red stripe, and the white horsehair plume would be removed from the helmet. The tailed coatee has brass shoulder scales where the officers have epaulettes.
They carry carbines here in the same manner that they would be carried on guard outside Horseguards Building in The Mall. Note the small white ammunition pouch on the waist belt. The white leather pouch belt slung over the left shoulder supports the carbine when not in use. Down the middle of it is the red flask cord, which by this time was purely decorative. The 2nd Life Guard regiment had a blue flask cord. This was the easiest way of telling the two regiments apart.

Regiment | Uniforms