1st KRRC belt ornament info please
 

I am pretty sure that this Forum has deduced correctly that the badge below must be from a belt or shoulder belt ornament of 1st KRRC.
Would any specialist to that regiment be able to confirm this and perhaps give a link to a description of the complete ornamentation of the belt and its period.

I would be very grateful.

Jon

Now identified as KRRC pouch belt ornament c.1853-1859
 

For those of you who might be interested, I have just received this reply from the museum in Winchester:

Unidentified badge 1st Bn KRRC

Thank you for your enquiry about this badge. I acknowledge with thanks your payment of the £30 research fee.

The item you describe and provided a photograph for is confirmed as being an item worn on the crossbelt of the 1st Battalion King’s Royal Rifle Corps. It was placed below the cross. The Appendix to The Annals of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps - Uniforms and Equipment by SM Milne and Major-General Astley Terry pub 1913 describes the item in a chapter entitled Decorations and in a sub-heading The Cross on the Pouchbelt, as follows:

1853 By some oversight, when the honours for the Punjab Campaign were granted in 1853, they were allotted to the 1st Battalion only, 3 and a scroll inscribed ‘1st Battn. Punjaub, Mooltan, Goojerat,’ was adopted by that battalion and placed under the cross. The mistake was soon rectified and the names added to the cross, but the scroll remained in use for some years till the old pattern died out.

There is a photograph in the museum of a group of officers of the 3rd battalion in Dublin in 1855, one of whom is clearly wearing a scroll beneath the cross, but it appears to be silver rather than blackened as your example is.

Yours sincerely

Blair Southerden

For

Christine Pullen (Mrs) Curator

This badge is now for sale if there is a serious KRRC collector out there who would like it. Working on the principal that if you give away puppies for free, you don't know if they are going to a home (who will care for and treasure them), the badge will be £150. (It cost me £100 and the £30 research fee). Since I have never sold anything in my life, the remaining £20 is just to encourage me not to be lazy and to bother with the hassle of posting it. I hope you understand - I think it is a rare piece and should got to a serious KRRC collector (who would be the person most likely to make a suitable custodian of it.)
I am offering it on this forum first, but any of your acquaintances who might like it, may email me on jon.lee63@googlemail.com

Many thanks

Jon

And just for completion - a photo of the badge in wear on a pouch belt in 1855 courtesy of the RGJ museum
(cropped from A group of officers of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps 3rd Battalion stationed in Dublin 1855. Item reference P/1963.)