This detail is taken from a group photo of A Company, 1st Battalion in Aldershot in 1910. The man in civilian clothes could be the commanding officer, flanked on either side by the Company officers. The one sitting in the centre of the photo is a second lieutenant in a blue patrol jacket, brown leather gloves, and trews. Next to him is the well-medalled Regimental Sergeant Major with four stripes on his forearm. His gold laced uniform is discussed with the cigarette card RSM, 4th Battalion, 1908. His glengarry cap is more like the officer’s than the rank and file behind him, slightly taller and having a square of black silk behind the badge. The privates do not have this silk square, but there are drummers in front of the man in the cloth cap, identified by their shoulder wings that have white lace with a repeating red crown pattern. They have the silk square as backing to their cap badges.
Amongst the other NCOs in this group, but not seen here, are Colour Sergeants who have a fly plaid secured with a brooch, but do not have gold lace on their doublet. Only one sergeant has a status just below the RSM, but he has three gold stripes on his upper arm, a staff sergeant who would, several decades hence, be titled Company Sergeant Major. He has similar gold decoration to the RSM, and a shoulder plaid across his chest, scarf-style. There are, amongst the privates, a couple of good conduct stripes on view which appear to be gold lace whereas a few years previously they had been white.
