Royal Engineers

Volunteer Engineers at Work

In the forground are an officer and sappers marching up the slope in full dress. The officer is a captain, denoted by his sleeve decoration. They are met by an officer in undress wearing a Torin cap and 'frock' - an undress form of the scarlet tunic with fewer buttons and no lace and braid decoration. The men above are working in various forms of dress. Some arewearing a field service cap similar to the officer's Torin cap and some are wearing pillbox caps with a white band round the base. White and silver are worn by other ranks and officers respectively in the Volunteer regiments as opposed to the Royal Engineers (regulars) who wore yellow and gold. Some men wear a blue shirt while others wear a white one. One man wears braces. Half the men wear white trousers while the others wear blue with red stripe. They are making baskets to fill with rocks and earth to use as a defence wall. These can be seen in many of the photos and engravings of the Redan outside Sebastopol.

Uniforms | Regimental details