These were generally known as staff badges because as well as officers they were authorised for sergeant appointments (of all grades, up to those made warrant officer in 1881) on the battalion HQ staff, e.g. musketry sergeant, sergeant master tailor, sergeant of pioneers, etc. The badges were not publicly funded and for these ‘staff sergeants’, as they were known, had to be purchased under regimental arrangements. Over the years the supplier changed and this led to the variations that you have identified.
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