[Toby Purcell]

David, he is a SNCO of the HQ staff at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, quite probably an orderly room clerk. This was a mirror image of the same system used in the HQs of artillery 'brigades' (before re-designation as regiments), cavalry regiments and infantry battalions.

These men, collectively known as 'staff sergeants' (with the same sense as staff officers) fulfilled specialist roles in command and staff functions and, as well as the unit/establishment's principal sergeant major (after 1881 reorganisation made a warrant officer) and quartermaster sergeant (assisting the QM), there were such esoteric posts as the master tailor and master cook, as well as the instructor of musketry and orderly room clerk.

ALL these 'staff sergeants' (and the few WOs) wore extra gold lace on collar, shoulder straps and cuff decoration to make clear their status. On the previous pattern tunic (before 1902) with jam-pot cuff, the cuff lace was a straight, horizontal band, but with the mitred cuff (pointed) it became a simple tre-foil knot. As these superior tunics were publicly funded and expensive, what you have is a very rare survival and the pattern used between 1902 and 1914.

All these staff sergeants had a rank and appointment, with the former varying according to the arm of service from whence they came. Thus an infantryman might be Colour Sergeant (rank) and Orderly Room Clerk (appointment), whilst a cavalry equivalent would be Staff Sergeant (rank) and Orderly Room Clerk (appointment). This causes great confusion for those not familiar with the British system, because at that time the term staff sergeant was both a collective designation for a group of specialists working in an HQ, and an individual rank for SNCOs in some corps and regiments of the army. In 1915 many (but not all) of the staff sergeants (collective term) became warrant officers of the new, class 2. Others lost their status as new technologies and new policies rendered their specialism outmoded, or much less important.

P.S. The button is correct for a member of the permanent staff at the RMC during the reign of Edward VII.

For Phaethon: This would be a very good buy. To put it in perspective it is the exact same tunic as would have been worn by battalion staff of the RDF between 1902 and 1914, but with RDF buttons and collar badges and RDF and grenade embroidered on the shoulder straps piped in bullion wire. It is exceedingly rare because there were so few, relatively, of these posts in each 1,000 man battalion. For many years these men also wore the superior 'staff badges' mentioned in the infantry badges section of the forum and, before 1902, also wore the special, officer pattern forage caps to mark their superior status even from a distance. The 'parent unit' of the man who wore the tunic is quite likely to have been one of the Irish infantry regiments (i.e. Royal Irish, Dublins, Munsters, Leinsters, or Connaughts).