Officer, Dress Uniform 1832

Dubois Drahonet's paintings of officers and men of various regiments include three of the 14th King's Light Dragoons, a captain, a sergeant and a private. No other light dragoon regiments were included in this series of paintings in the Royal Collection. The uniform was changed in 1832. The uniform seen here on Captain Dawson is scarlet with blue facings, gold lace, braid and epaulettes, but the previous uniform was dark blue with orange facings and silver lace etc. Up until 1828 the front of the jacket had been covered with the orange plastron but this was dispensed with and the double breasted coatee was adopted. It was close-fitting and waist-length at the front, but with short tails at the back. On 30 July 1830 the 14th were re-titled 14th (or King's) Light Dragoons so were required to swap their orange facings for scarlet. But a few days later, on 2 August, the order went out that blue (and silver) were no longer to be worn in the regular army, apart from the Royal Horse Guards. So the coatee was now to be scarlet with blue facings, and the silver lace had to be gold. Another order on 5 Feb 1831 brought about the change from light blue-grey trousers to dark blue.
His shako is adorned with the drooping white cocktail feathers, and the gold plaited festoon across the front is hooked up to the right side with a small tassel, and randomly plaited gold cords hanging down and looped around his pouch-belt. The odd method of wearing these caplines must be put down to the fact that the uniform was new at the time and he really didn't know, at that stage, what the regimental custom was for the attachment of the flounder and tassel ends to his coat. His pouch-belt is covered with gold lace and has a dark blue stripe down the middle. It still has the silver plate pickers and chains, and the silver fronted pouch on the back.

Regimental Details | Uniforms