VF and TF unique badges
 

Please do any members collect/ have specialised knowledge of the badges unique to the VF and Tf?

If so, I seek better images of the badges, and images of the badges being worn, and the reference to the regulations sanctioning them. In particular I do not have VF Regs 1901, although I own, or have access to, most VF TF and Militia Regulations.

Examples are the SB in circle stretcher bearer, and the SSS Special Service Section.

I must declare an interest: I was the co-author with Denis Edwards of "British Army Proficiency Badges etc"., but am disatisfied with our coverage now that later data and illustrations are more widely available. The original book pre-dated the internet by many years .................

Some background on the SSS badge from Hansard:18 May 1900 vol 83 cc532-6 532
§ [INTRODUCTION.]

§* THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE) Therefore we propose in this Bill to take powers under which the Volunteers will be able to enter into an agreement which will render them liable to service at any time whether a proclamation of emergency has been issued or not, and in any part of the world, whether within or without the limits of the United Kingdom. I will give your Lordships an 534 illustration of the manner in which, in our anticipation, this provision might operate. The whole Volunteer force, as your Lordships are probably aware, has a place in the schemes which have been prepared for the defence of the United Kingdom. Now, it seems to me quite conceivable that we might wish, in certain circumstances which we can easily imagine, to be able to place a part of the Volunteer force quietly and unostentatiously in those particular fortresses or at those vulnerable points at which their place would be found when hostilities had actually broken out, and to be able to do this without calling out the whole of the Volunteer force. It is with that object that we take powers to accept the services of Volunteers who may assume the liability of coming-out at a time when the proclamation of emergency has not yet been issued. Then there is a different contingency. In a case where hostilities have actually broken out and are in progress beyond the limits of the United Kingdom, we think it highly probable that a part of the Volunteer force will desire to do what they have lately been doing, and make some contribution to the forces employed in the field. Our recent experience in this respect has been very remarkable. The Volunteer force—and I do not think we can give them sufficient credit for it— have contributed no less than sixty-five service companies, with the necessary drafts, companies which are at this moment serving with the Line battalions to which they are affiliated in South Africa. We have also seen a very magnificent force of 1,500 men who have been sent as Volunteers, representing the Volunteer force of this great city; and I may tell your Lordships that the manner in which these men have conducted themselves in the field has elicited the warm approval and admiration of the generals under whom they have been serving. In our anticipation, if similar circumstances were again to occur it is likely that the Volunteers would again desire to bear the same honourable part; and if we are to look forward to their doing so it is desirable that the necessary arrangements should not be left, as they necessarily were left on this occasion, to be improvised at the last moment, but that we should make them beforehand and not in the midst of the hurry and confusion which are inseparable from the prepara- 535 tion of a great armed force. We think that we should know beforehand what number of men we can count upon, where they are to be found, and what degree of efficiency they have attained. We take power, therefore, as I explained to your Lordships a moment ago, to agree with Volunteers to come forward for service in any part of the world, whether within or without Her Majesty's dominions. I cannot insist too much upon this: that the arrangement which we contemplate is one which is entirely optional with the Volunteers themselves. We propose to accept the services only of those who desire to offer their services, and in the rules which we shall make in order to give effect to this Bill we intend that it shall be made perfectly clear that any Volunteer who joins what I suppose will be called the Special Service Section of his battalion should be free to leave it and to divest himself of his obligation on giving a reasonable notice to the military authorities. The only other explanatory observation which I will add is this: that we have prepared this Bill in consultation with a number of representative Volunteer officers, and that we have every reason to believe that the measure is one acceptable to the force because it will give them an opportunity of rendering again the very signal service which they have recently rendered, and of rendering it under conditions more convenient to the War Department and to themselves.

Not brilliant images but these may be of interest.

Jon

I have 2 or 3 SSS cloth badges, blue on red, slightly different manufacture, but they won't add anything to the illustrations in the original book.

Thank you both. The sleeve on which worn may never have been defined: the badge appears on the left or right lower sleeve, but I have never seen it elsewhere.

I have revisited the subject of where the Special Service Section sSs badge was to be worn.
I see that Denis Edwards and I concluded that, as we believed it was a badge of appointment, it was to be worn on the upper right sleeve.

Searching all my references today I can find no reference or authority at all for our assertion. In common with very few other badges it seems to be neither fish nor fowl regarding "category", so where to wear it was perhaps a moot point. [Another example is the distance-judging star for regulars, which was plonked on the right sleeve as there was nowhere logical to put it].

The Section was referred to in VF Regs 1901 and subsequently. I do not hold that year's but have put out feelers.

Meantime [not a lot of people know this!] it has also been seen in white metal, and a lovely badge that is too.

I always considered it the officers version.

Yes it may well be.

Not that I own ANY SSS badges!

I now have information regarding where the SSS badge was to be worn and will quote chapter and verse tomorrow.

Due to the great kindness of a colleague I can reveal with the utmost certainty that Para 648 VFR 1901, "Reprinted for provisional use with Corrections and Amendments up to the 31st July 1904."

says that the badge was to be worn on the left cuff.

Whereas the illustration in yer book (37/1) shows it worn on the right cuff.

Certainement, but that is in a minority as regards the illustrations available to me now.

Perhaps worn on the right cuff as he wears his "G" on the left?

I've just faked this up for an eBay sale (no, not really just laid the badges on the cavalry frock for the photo).

The two badges I have, must've given a third away, these two are of identical manufacture other than minute differences of size of crown & the like.
Picked up in Oundle, N'hants some years ago.

Leigh,

Very nice.
Although I have the silvered one I showed earlier I am yet to find one like those.

regards

I'd like to see some in other colours - and to own a few, of course. That silvered badge is a nice one.