Officers and Other Ranks, 1896

This photo was taken at Fort Tregantle soon after the 2nd Battalion returned to Britain from India. There are three officers sitting in the middle wearing their blue and red forage caps with Lion and Rose embroidered badge. Their frock tunics appear darker than the frocks worn by the ORs either side of them, this is because they are dark blue all over. This garment was introduced in 1896 to replace the blue braided patrol jacket and is still in use today as no.1 dress. The belt is a blue cloth type with gilt buckle.
Seated on the ground are buglers and band boys. The three band members wear white belts on the left shoulder with white sheet music pouches on their back. One of the buglers has a drum carriage on his right shoulder. The bugler on the left wears an interesting red frock with a blue collar and red and white braid around the base of the collar, round the edge of the red shoulder straps and along the top of the cuff. The red cuff is pointed with white and red drummers lace. The rest of the buglers and band boys wear the full dress tunic.
Three more adult bandsmen can be seen standing near the back. The rest are ORs of varying rank all in red frocks with blue collars, except for the man in the middle back who is in a full dress tunic. This can be seen by the number of buttons, 5 on the frock and 7 on the tunic. The RSM is seated to the left of the officers. His frock has a gold lace edge to the collar and gold braid in the form of a trefoil on his cuff. The other WO has no gold lace on his collar.
Everyone below the rank of Warrant Officer is wearing the field service cap which is all blue and has a Lion badge on the left side. This cap replaced the glengarry in the mid-1890s.

Uniforms | Regimental Details