Officers 1884

This group photo of officers of the 1st Battalion was taken either in Malta or Egypt in 1884. Up until July of that year they were in Nova Scotia, but then sailed to Egypt for the Nile Campaign. It was customary for Egypt-bound troop ships to stop at Malta and this photo may have been taken there.
Three officers are in dress uniforms with the new white facings, and foreign service white helmets. The others are in blue patrol jackets and forage caps, except for two who wear Glengarry caps. There are three officers who have different badges on the front of their forage caps, which cannot be easily explained. They all have badges on their collars except the two young officers standing on the left of the photo. They also do not have badges of rank on their shoulder straps and are therefore 2nd Lieutenants. The other officers have gold metal rank badges on their shoulder straps, apart from the seated hatless officer who holds a stick. He is wearing the old style patrol jacket which has no shoulder straps. He has a rank badge (maybe two badges) on his collar. At this stage, lieutenants had one star, captains two, majors a crown and lieutenant-colonels a crown and star.

Regimental Details | Uniforms