Hello Julian
As Dean has pointed out, I’m personally quite happy with Gaunt ‘Birmingham’ marks on these early Leicesters cap badges. I am aware of three such marks on Leicestershire Volunteer/Territorial tiger cap badges, dating from before and after 1908: “J.R.Gaunt & Son Ltd B’ham”, “J.R. Gaunt B’ham”, and “J.R. Gaunt & Son Ltd Birm”. These all appear to be genuine marks, and are on badges that are so obviously the J.R. Gaunt & Son maker’s variation/type.
Why these Leicesters badges have such marks, as opposed to ones with a ‘London’ mark, I don’t know for sure. I suspect it may have something to do with the fact they would have been obtained by the volunteer battalion/territorial association themselves rather than through the War Office, and possibly therefore directly from the factory in Birmingham and not via Gaunt’s London outlet? Dean certainly raises a valid point, in that it would indeed be useful to know if any other volunteers/territorials had badges marked with a Gaunt ‘Birmingham’ mark??
As to volunteer battalions having white metal badges before 1901, I’m sure that they did. Again as Dean noted, John Mulcahy posted what he had found in WO 359/21 (Pattern book of 108 designs of badges for Volunteer Regiments) for the Leicesters
here, which is of significance in this respect. It was just the
white metal tiger cap badges that I was saying dated from 1902 onwards. Apparently before this date, the 1st Volunteer Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment wore a badge with three lions on it, an example of which Dean put up
here.
Regarding blades and loops (lugs), just to clarify where the Leicesters white metal tiger cap badges are concerned, the ones I have seen with blades are die-cast and so appear to be officers’ badges, whereas the ones with loops are die-struck and so seem to be ORs ones. I have so far only seen the “South Africa 1900.02” honour, which was awarded in 1905, on the die-cast bladed officers badges. What cap badges the officers were wearing from 1902-1905 I do not know? As I have not seen any die-struck looped ORs badge with the South Africa honour, I assume they continued to wear the badges with the “1st Vol. Battn” top scroll after 1905 - though, as I’ve already said, maybe someone else knows different??
Best regards
Martin