Quote:
Originally Posted by Markus Bodeux
Hello all,
i have just added this helmet plate to my small Corps & Departments collection.
Following K&K it is a helmet plate for OR of the Military Foot and Mounted Police,KK1027, worn from 1885 until 1902 with a red cloth backing. The obverse showed small areas with booming verdigris, and i hat to remove the green salty verdigris to stop the process of corrosion. I guess this helmet plate is not very common and i am glad to have it in my drawer ! 
I have found some more helmet plates with the VR cypher in center, so for example for the Corps of Military Schoolmasters, and for a Militia-Battalion of the Glamorgan Militia (Westlake "British Home Service Helmet" page 106) but with the cypher in wm/silver.
So i conclude, this can only be the one for Military (Foot&Mounted) Police.
Hope you like it also, any comments welcome,
kind regards
Markus |
Markus please believe me when I say that I’m not telling you the following information to rain on your parade. The badge you depict was never worn by the Military Mounted Police or the Military Foot Police. Instead they wore a vertically elongated star plate of Dragoons type**. As well as the helmet plate they wore Dragoons pattern cuff knots on their full dress tunics. Unfortunately an erroneous identification of your badge in the Kipling and King book on British Army badges has been accepted as gospel. I am positive this information is correct and have discussed it with the researcher and author at the CRMP Museum, Toby Brayley.
Original artwork by a prolific artist, Ernest Ibbotson, who always sketched and painted from life depicted the uniform and insignia accurately, unfortunately modern artists such as Bryan Fosten and Alix Baker, who could not work from life researched as best they could and as both accepted the Kipling and King reference they painted the helmet insignia incorrectly.
**inspired by the MMP mounted status and a historical nod to previous military police known as the Royal Staff Corps, who had acted as the Duke of Wellington’s provost police, until being disbanded at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. They had been mounted and dressed in the Dragoons style.