['Ticker' Riley]

Hi Dean

Good to see your officers’ badges, and a very nice pair they make too. It is also particularly interesting to see you say the OSD star is actaully smaller in size than silver and gilt one. However I’m afraid you’re really testing my knowledge here, as my primary interest is just the Leicesters’ tiger cap badges from 1897 onwards, and I’m afraid I don’t collect other kinds of badges and accoutrement.

Anyhow, I must begin by saying that the 1906 date with regard to Service Dress, as given by Steppler in Britons, To Arms!, relates solely to the 1st Vol. Battn of the Leicestershire Regiment and not to the other battalions. Presumably these did adopted Service Dress in 1902, however your OSD star badge is interesting in this respect because it would potentially suggest that this was worn before an OSD tiger badge had been approved.

My understanding, and no doubt other more learned members of this Forum will point out if I am wrong, was that the tiger cap badges that were sealed in 1897 were specifically for the Field Service Cap (i.e. the Side Cap), which had replaced the Glengary in 1893. Though, as you say, Officers, Warrant Officers and Sergeants would also have worn a Forage Cap upon which would have been one of the star badges you show; indeed such badges are described in the 1900 Dress Regulations for the Officers of the Army, p. 88.

I also think I’m right when I say ORs only had their Forage Cap from 1902 onwards, when the ‘Brodrick’ Cap was introduced to replace the Field Service Cap (or at least worn as something in between a helmet and a side cap). The badges for this were the same as for the FS Cap, only with a very long vertical shank (slider) instead of loops (lugs). Incidentally, I haven’t personally seen a ‘Brodrick’ for the Leicesters, and would be keen to do so if anyone knows of one? Anyway, the ‘Brodrick’ was replaced in 1905 with a new style Peaked Forage Cap, for which, as Julian’s research has revealed, the vertical shanks on the cap badges had to be shortened.

The officers’ however acquired their version of the new style Peaked Forage Cap in 1902, at the same time as the general introduction of Service Dress, so that the officers’ cap for Service Dress was essentially the same pattern only of ‘drab mixture serge’. Now I’m only surmising, but I take it that initially officers continued to wear their old Forage Cap badges, like your silver and gilt star, on their new style Peaked Forage Cap. But assume that by the time the ORs got theirs, in 1905, the officers were wearing tiger cap badges like the ORs. This means that your OSD star badge could, conceivably, be what was worn in the Service Dress version of the Peaked Forage Cap from 1902 until 1905.

Basically I’m saying I think we’re looking at officers wearing the old Victorian star badges in their new style Peaked Forage Caps from 1902-1905, but after this wearing the tiger cap badge that they formerly wore in their Field Service Caps from 1897 onwards. Whereas the ORs wore their tiger cap badges, which they had also worn in their Field Service Caps, first in the ‘Brodrick’, and then in their new style Peaked Forage Caps, from 1903 onwards. I also think your OSD star has a good chance of being worn in the officers’ Service Dress Caps from 1902-1905, after which OSD tiger cap badges would have been worn.

I’ll admit this is all a bit out of my area of interest and collecting! As I said to you in an e-mail, I am currently trying to work out a general chronology for the Leicesters tiger cap badges, which I’m hoping to post to the Forum in due course for comment. So regarding the above, if anyone thinks I’m way off on any of this please post up! I’d be more than happy to be corrected, because, like Dean, I’m keen to sort out exactly what was worn and when!!

Best regards

Martin