ROYAL DRAGOONS SOUTH AFRICA 1900

[Jimbo66]

At Windsor recently I discovered a photo taken in 1900 of some of the NCOs of the Royal Dragoons. What I was pleased to find was a sergeant wearing a numeral 1 over a D brass shoulder title. I have an example in my collection but was not sure if and when it was worn. There is another sergeant wearing in his helmet an embroidered 1 over RD. Fortunately one of these survives and is in the Household Cavalry Museum at Windsor.

[GriffMJ]

The rosette is very faded so I have created the coloured example. The 1/RD appears to have come from an old tunic shoulder title.

** The red rectangle is early and the blue is later.

[davidwyke]

Hi

I believe the 1/D shoulder titles were probably introduced in 1899 when the Royals were kitted out with khaki before leaving for South Africa, which is supported by your photo. They were worn until c.1907 when replaced by 1/RD. These were worn (with several variants, both one and two piece) until 1913.

David

[Frank Kelley]

A good many separate letters and numerals were worn by the Cavalry in South Africa, yet, these days, they only seldom turn up, I suppose, once they got separated, that became that, which is a great shame, the 5th Lancers rank and file had certainly used both a two piece separate and a single piece title during that campaign, nice things.

[Jimbo66]

Here is a photo of an embroidered epaulette from a full-dress uniform. This is certainly different from the helmet flash so I am not sure if these were taken from old uniforms and used as a helmet badge. If memory serves me right someone has researched this and discovered that these helmet flashes were manufactured as such. Perhaps someone can enlighten me?