Quote:
Originally Posted by grenadierguardsman
I have the first image ( the actual page ) and cant tell clearly wether the cypher is mounted or struck ?! Up until 1911 i believe the Quartermaster wore plain clothes and had a No.1 dress for which he wore the cocked hat with. From what i have read he didn't have any other headdress. The badge image info i have seen, do you know where they got their info from ? as again this differs from K & K. So the badge at the beginning of this thread is no.5 ?
Andy
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My eyes suggest the badge is struck, not mounted, which latter has a much more three dimensional appearance. We are talking about the Victorian era and there is no doubt that quartermasters did have full dress, worn with cocked hats when in review order, albeit that it wasn’t often worn other than for full strength battalion parades when in review order. It was his equivalent of a bearskin and had been worn by Foot Guards battalion staff (officers) even when the Guards were still wearing shakos. There is also no doubt that in undress, usually the eponymous Guards pattern frock coat, that QMs wore the round forage cap. I have just shown you a photo to that effect and there are others of the QM Scots Guards in that dress.
No I do not know where the information on the badge patterns ‘originated’ from, but it was not Kipling and King, so presumably from another source. If you choose not to believe Andy, because you’ve not seen a sealed pattern or some other concrete evidence, that’s up to you. It’s a bit like someone doubting Christ because they weren’t there to meet him, and I’m not interested in evangelising you. What has been described as the commissioned quartermaster’s special badge undoubtedly had a short life and seems to have been unique to the Grenadiers, which in part is probably why it didn’t last. If the Coldstreams and Scots did not inflict an arguably snobbish difference on their quartermasters I imagine it probably led to some feeling of perhaps unspoken resentment. It doesn’t mean that it did not exist though, so I’m keeping an open mind. I’m surprised that no one has taken the trouble to visit the Guards Museum and properly research this through the archives, I’m pretty sure it’s what Kipling and King would have done to get their information in the first place.
The only other possibility that I can think of, if Kipling and King are incorrect, is that it might relate to Battalion staff sergeants, who were dressed in two classes of uniform, First Class and Sergeants Class, and so might also have had two classes of forage cap badge. If that were so, the First Class comprised the sergeant major, the bandmaster, the quarter master sergeant, the sergeant instructor of musketry, drill sergeants, and the drum major, who would all have worn the grenade with silver mounted cypher. All the other battalion staff (sergeants) wore Sergeants Class and so perhaps might have worn the grenade with gilt mounted cypher and all other sergeants (colour sergeant and below) the grenade with cypher embossed/struck. It will never be confirmed unless someone goes to the museum and properly researches it.