N-S versus E-W alignment of blades
Hello Julian
Many thanks for your kind words, of which I am wholly undeserving. It is good to be back on the Forum, though I can’t say how long this stay will last I’m afraid. I only wish I had more time to undertake research, especially looking through the records, but as you’ll know it’s never easy with work and everything. Oh, by the way, thank you for your Christmas message which I read yesterday!!
The idea of blades being used instead of loops on OSD badges, because of them not needing to be removed to be cleaned in the same way a S&G badge would, does seem sound enough, and I suppose blades offered a firmer fixing than loops and a pin. However I do have one silver Volunteer Battalion badge to the Leicesters with blades which, presumably, would have needed to be taken off and cleaned fairly regularly?
As to the north-south versus the east-west alignment, I really don’t know the answer to this but do wonder if it isn’t associated with a change of headgear for officers? The Leicestershire 1st Volunteer Battalion badge I’ve mentioned has its blades in the more usual east-west orientation, which means this was being used before 1908. I don’t have a comparable OSD badge for the Volunteers, so can’t say if they were using these badges with east-west blades from 1902, when I believe officers’ service dress came in, up until they became the Territorials.
Having said that, Dean’s Leicesters Territorials’ OSD badge, which now has north-south blades, appears to originally have had them set east-west. I am also aware of a white-metal ‘walking-out’ Territorials badge to the Leicesters, that I assume could have been worn from 1908 up to 1917 when the TF were ‘permitted’ to wear the same badges as the parent regiment, which similarly has north-south blades. Could there have been some kind of new officers’ hat which came in around 1908? It would be interesting to perhaps open this question up as a new thread, as I wouldn’t want to bog Alan and Dean’s thread down with this. Maybe Dean would be good enough to post up his Territorial OSD elsewhere to kick things off?
Anyway, as I say, I don’t have the answer to this, let alone where three blades fit into things, but I would think it must lie in the headgear being worn at different times.
Best regards
Martin
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From Hindoostan, Gibraltar and Almanza; to Dunblane, Alma and Brandywine: Tigers, Steelbacks, Dutch Guards, Leather Hats, Nanny Goats and Red Feathers!
Interested in style and variation of post-1893 regimental cap badges for the Leicesters, the Northamptons, the Warwicks, the K.L.R., the R.W.F. and the D.C.L.I.
“Scutelliphiliacus in vestri insignia pergaudete”
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