Pagri patch colours of the 60th Division
 

Hello everyone,

I would be very grateful if anyone has any information on pagri patch colours of the 60th London Division. The information shown on the attached illustration is derived from collections held at the IWM*, however, there are no details for the second lines of the 13th, 22nd, 23rd and 24th battalions of the London Regiment.

I am pretty sure that the First Surrey Rifles would not have been the only battalion of the 181st brigade to have worn a square patch. Such insignia is shown being worn in photographs I have seen of the other units in this brigade. With regard to the 2/13th Bn., I have never seen any pictures or read any information about a pagri patch.

I wonder if anyone has ever seen or read anything.

Many thanks in advance for any help you may be able to provide.

Chris

*Information on the colour of 2/20th Bn. patch comes from the regimental history by Captain Elliot and also ‘Long ‘Un- A Damned Bad soldier’, By Bernard Livermore.

Attachment 185183

There is a bit of extra information on the cloth insignia worn by these battalions in the recent book WW1 British Battle Insignia by Kevin Beckwith, but I suspect there's nothing there that will help further with your question about pagri patches.

Many thanks indeed for your reply. Much appreciated.
I will have to get hold of that book.

IIRC there is also record at the IWM of the following:

2/13th Bn.....Grey/white rose worn on the back of officers' jackets.
2/16th Bn ....Red/white rose as above.
...................Green and white tape worn on epaulette in Salonika.
2/24th Bn.....Green and white tape (as with 2/16th Bn).

Cheers,
Chris

All of those are illustrated in Beckwith's book. The 13th Bn grey-white rose is noted as 'Position & size unknown'.

Many thanks again. Do you know where can get a copy? I cannot seem to find it by Googling.

The IWM has a few more details:

BATTALION PATCH, LONDON REGIMENT, 2/13TH BATTALION
Physical description
silver wire embroidered rose with grey outer edge
History note
worn by officers on back of tunic below collar

BATTALION PATCH, LONDON REGIMENT, 2/16TH BATTALION
Physical description
embroidered red and white rose on khaki
History note
worn on back by officers.

Thanks again for your help with this.

Chris

http://www.militarymodepublishing.com/
Are you familiar with this publication? https://www.themilitaryhistoricalsoc...&category_id=2

Rgds, Thomas

Thanks for doing this, Thomas. There you go, Chris.

Thanks very much, gentlemen.

I have the Hibberd and Gibbs book, but not the Beckwith one. I will get on and order it.

Many thanks again,

Chris

Here are photos of the 2/13th and 2/16th officers' rose badges. These are the examples from the IWM collection.
Mike

That's wonderful. Thanks very much indeed, Mike. Very nice to see those.

Chris

I had a brief look at the Military Mode book recently and noticed a Welsh type dragon featured on a page about the Royal Berkshire Regiment. Looked to be very little in the way of original badges on uniforms featured- I would be interested in reviews on the book as it is not cheap and looked to use mainly diagrams. Regards, Paul.

Hello Paul,

I presumed that the information was exactly the same as that in Mike Hibberd's book except that Beckwith had added his own diagrams. He must have gone to the IWM and photographed all of the insignia and then based his illustrations on this.

As an aside, and unless I am mistaken, I have noticed that the IWM seems to be slowly photographing many items in its collection. I don't know, but it could be that the originals will soon be available to view online. Many from WWII seem to be.

That said, I find it a lot easier to use Hibberd's book to look something up quickly. I don't know about you, but I do not find the IWM search engine to be that easy to use. For example, typing '1st Battalion, London Regiment' does not necessarily bring up everything you want. You seem to have to get it almost exactly correct. When you don't know the exact term, it can take a while! Before his book came out it took me an age to look-up all the London embroidered shoulder titles.

Chris

Paul,

I had it bought for me as a Xmas present. It fills what is still a void in the WW1 collecting market. The computerised graphics are ok but dimension information is patchy and often not accurately portrayed. It could have done with more period photos showing insignia in use and few more surviving original examples.If you are deeply into WW1 cloth unit insignia I would say its one to have.

Mark

I am sure others have thought the same thing, but I can't help but wonder if the 2/14th and 2/15th officers also wore some kind of flower emblem on the back of the jacket.

Thanks for the comments on the Military Mode book- can anyone who has it confirm the Welsh Dragon used with info on The Royal Berkshires-who used the China Dragon- I wondered afterwards if there was a reason that I did not notice. Regards, Paul.