NZP&TC
Brent,
An excellent posting from you and at a quick look I would agree with most if not all of what you have said. I need to go through it again carefully when I have some time and reply to you. However, as regards your two questions, I had always thought of Royal Signals as having the first Mercury headdress badge even though the Indian Corps of Signals was formed a few months before Britains Royal Signals they did not have a Mercury badge for about another 15 years. You are right of course, NZP&TC used Mercury's feet before R. Signals and as far as I know were the first to use Mercury. I had not thought of it that way before.
Why did the NZP&TC badge get used? The Div Signals disbanded quickly on return from Europe. The NZP&TC units were mainly within New Zealand. (ANZAC Wireless Troop in Mesopotamia was an exception) Therefore when they decided to create the New Zealand Corps of Signals the units were formed from the old NZP&TC and continued to wear their old badges. Some of the old Div Sigs people did join up of course. The Mercury badge was introduced from memory in the mid thirties (I dont have my notes to hand) but they did not have much money so they continued wearing the old badges. When they had a shortage of the NZP&TC badges they then used up old stocks of the NZ Signal Corps badge from WW1 and I have a photo of them being worn up till about 1941! Thats the story in a nutshell. There is more but time is running out.
Rgds Quicksilver
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