Norfolk Regt 1888
 

Thought this might be of interest: officers of the 2nd Bn. The Norfolk Regiment, Mandalay 1888 (apologies for the picture quality):

Attachment 268111Attachment 268112Attachment 268113Attachment 268114Attachment 268115

Regards,

JT

The guy with the amazing moustache appears to be wearing a miniature medal?

Looks more like 1898 to me.

regards

What’s your thinking here, Simon?

JT

JT,

I did post a reply shortly after and its not appeared, dont know why?

Basically they are wearing FS Caps and not glengarries, so thats the reason.

regards

Well, the 2nd Norfolk was stationed briefly in Burma in 1888 before returning to Sitapur (India) the same year and then to Colchester in 1890. Both regular battalions were in India at the same time, the 1st since 1889 to 1904.
Are we sure of which battalion the photo represents?

CB

PS, I note the Britannia Pagri badge, which I thought was only for NCOs, but not according to this photo. The FS caps are Khaki. Did this form of headgear appear earlier in this material in the sub-continent than home service?

The pagri badge has wrongly been called an NCO's badge for some time and Bosley's perpetuates this error. There is a photo of it being worn by a Private on this forum on a pagri. There are also photos of it being worn as a cap badge circa 1915 when there was a shortage of correct badges.

1881.07.01 2nd Battalion, The Norfolk Regiment
* 1881 India: Bengal
* 1885 Sitapur
* 1888 Burma
* 1890.03 England: Colchester

At first glance it does seem odd and had the photo been related to the earlier fighting in 1885, I’d have agreed that the caps were wrong, but this is 1888 and although it wasn’t until the early 1890s that the so-called Austrian style field service cap became widespread for officers (and late 1890s for the men) there is other photographic evidence that the cap had already begun its popularity. Here below is a photo of some officers from 1st Rifle Brigade taken in 1888 in Burma. The date has apparently been ratified because three of the officers depicted had died within three years of that date. Caps made in khaki drill endured a long time in India because they were made up locally as a cheap and simple design constructed from omnipresent khaki drill cloth supplied by the Indian Army government clothing factories. They continued in use for decades after they ceased being worn on the home establishment and are still popular in India today.

Apologies for not including this in the OP, but I was unable to locate the image. For some inexplicable reason it had not been filed away with the other photos.

Here is the photograph's accompanying note as it appeared on display at the the sadly long-gone Norfolk Regt. Museum:

Attachment 268131

Thanks for all the input so far. Brilliant stuff.

JT

I have found this thread especially interesting because of the caps. It was clearly an evolutionary period and one thing that is especially significant is that the two old rifle regiments were clearly among the first regular infantry regiments to adopt the Austrian (FSC) in woollen cloth. I suspect that is because it particularly suited the rope boss badge that they favoured, but also showcased their iconically black, rifles buttons, that did not feature on the Torin type cap (plus glengarry) that it eventually superseded.

Another interesting aspect of the Norfolks group is that they’re all wearing the earlier pattern of Sam Browne belt that had much wider suspension braces. The pattern eventually brought in as the standard type in accordance with c1900 Dress Regulations (the first time the belt was mentioned in DRs) had noticeably narrower braces.

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