[Toby Purcell]

There was a period during the 1890s through to the turn of the Century and a short period up to WW1 when Officers’ Mess servants (waiters and batmen) were required to wear tailcoats for the weekly ‘guest nights’ when social equals were invited to dine in the Mess. These tailcoats had special, Regimental buttons selected by regimental committees and unregulated at army level. They have become a specialist area for collectors and are extremely rare. Often in silver plate, they invariably have open backs and fixed loops. The last regiment to require these servants tailcoats (generally double breasted with two rows of buttons, plus cuffs) to be used was the RA Mess at Woolwich and I enclose a photo with a servant in that mess in the foreground at the once famous annual RA dinner in the 1950s, before officer’s Mess Dress was again authorised.