Officers, Drummer & Other Ranks 1839

This contemporary print of a Battalion Company of the King’s Regiment on parade dates c1839, the year that the badge on the shakos of the rank and file changed from the star shape to the circular pattern. In the foreground are three officers wearing the gold epaulettes of a Battalion Company. Their shakos have white ball tufts as from 1835, and no cap lines which were discontinued in 1830.
The double-breasted scarlet tailed coat has a blue collar and blue round cuffs that have a gold laced slash flap. The front part of the collar was covered in gold lace. The tails showed white turn-backs with an embroidered regimental badge at the base of each tail. False pockets were decorated with four gold laced button loops. This fashion lasted until 1848. The officers have different ways of carrying their swords. The company officers, captains or subalterns, have white leather shoulder-belts with their swords kept in leather and brass scabbards. The officer on the right is a field officer who has his sword slung from a slim white leather waist-belt, fastened with a regimental rectangular clasp. In this print the scabbard is brass, as used by majors and lieutenant-colonels, and above. Adjutants, although of more junior rank, also carried their swords this way, as they could be mounted, but they had steel scabbards.
The rank and file wore a red coat with white lace across the front. This was plain lace; the patterned lace had been discontinued in 1836. The coats were single-breasted and fastened with pewter buttons. The blue collars were edged all around with white and had a single white lace loop in the middle. The cuffs in this print are depicted as plain and round but having no white laced slash flaps. The shoulder straps have fringed white epaulettes. The sergeant, at the end of the line, turns his head towards the front rank. His coat is without white lace across the chest. The Regulations of 1836 stated that NCOs of that rank should have double-breasted coats like the officers but collars, cuffs and epaulettes like the men. He should have a sash around his waist. Sergeant-majors and Quartermasters were to have silver lace where the officers had gold. This sergeant carries a musket whereas before 1830 he would have been armed with a pike. The drummer’s uniform is discussed in the Drummers and Band section.

Regimental Details | Uniforms