Officer, Full Dress 1832

This is one of an excellent series of prints published by W. Spooner of Regent Street c1832. The artists were L.Mansion & L. Eschauzier. They are generally refered to as the Spooner upright series and are a well-known and important source of information to those who study the history and development of military costume.
Many of the light dragoon regiments prior to 1830 had blue jackets decorated with silver lace. These were changed in 1830 to red jackets and gold lace. The 13th already had gold lace so they were required only to change to a red jacket. This was a similar style to the blue jacket that preceeded it, being double-breasted with two parallel rows of gilt buttons down the front. It was waist length and tight fitting. At the back there was a short tail with white turnbacks and a gold bullion fringe just under the girdle. The girdle itself was three rows of gold lace with crimson silk between. The collar, in the regimental white facing colour was 3" high fastening at the front, laced all round and decorated with russia braid. The cuff was also white and decorated in a similar way but becoming more elaborate for higher ranks.
Across his chest, from the left shoulder, is the pouch belt which carries a silver flapped pouch. The belt is of gold lace with a white silk stripe down the middle. On the front are decorative silver chains and pickers.
His headgear consists of a black beaver shako, a few inches shorter than the previous pattern, laced around the top and a Maltese cross badge on the front (see picture of actual shako). A white horse hair plume rise and droops at the front. Gold caplines are attached to the shako with an impressive festoon across the front and hang down, fastening to the jacket on the left side, finishing in flounders and tassles. The wonderful thing about these prints is their attention to detail especially with respect to the horse furniture. This figure is from a photograph which is not pin sharp, but I have in my possession two original prints (etchings) of other regiments (The Blues and 3rd Dragoon Guards) which will be appearing on this website to show the detail of the lace pattern etc. The bridles are also very closely observed.
On the other side of the officer, hanging from a gold laced waist belt, are his sword and sabretache. The sword is the 1823 pattern, three bar hilt and slightly curved blade, in a steel scabbard. The sabretache is shown in a seperate picture.

13th Light Dragoons: Uniforms | Regimental details