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  #1  
Old 22-02-20, 05:30 PM
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Default Ox and Bucks in India

Some interesting insignia on view in this photo taken in Bangalore.

Jon
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File Type: jpg Ox and Bucks 2 JM.jpg (41.6 KB, 69 views)
File Type: jpg Ox and Bucks 3 JM.jpg (23.7 KB, 47 views)
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  #2  
Old 22-02-20, 08:09 PM
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Lovely photo Jon, thanks for sharing, an Officer? Regards Mark
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Old 22-02-20, 08:59 PM
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Possibly a Warrant Officer Class 2, although difficult to see the rank badge. Extract from Ox&Bucks LI Dress Regulations 1930, see para (ii):

53. Khaki Drill (Abroad).

(i) The regimental serjeant-major and the bandmaster will wear officers' pattern jackets, shirts, collars and ties with plain shoulder straps. When the men are ordered to wear trousers and puttees, the regimental serjeant-major and bandmaster will wear breeches of the same material as the jacket, with puttees.

(ii) Warrant officers class II will wear the regulation khaki drill jacket with the addition of side pockets fastened by medium sized buttons. Gorget buttons and cords will be worn on the collar but no shoulder titles on the shoulder straps.

(iii) Warrant officers, non-commissioned officers and men will, when shorts are ordered to be worn, wear hose-tops. These hose-tops will be worn in a double fold three inches in width. Shorts will be of the same material as the jacket. The bottom edge of the shorts will be level with the top of the knee-cap.

Tim
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Old 22-02-20, 09:57 PM
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The jacket is of the warrant officer pattern as mentioned, with those lower pockets. Strange no rank is visible on the lower sleeves. Would also expect to see medal ribbons for such a rank.
The Ox & Bucks certainly had unique collar insignia of the cord with regimental button.
I have touched on this before, but these old studio photos can be notoriously unreliable with regard to regulation wear. It is not at all impossible that the jacket is a borrowed prop for photo op purposes. Judging from the poor fit, I think this is likely the case.
CB
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Last edited by cbuehler; 23-02-20 at 12:52 AM. Reason: change
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Old 20-03-20, 02:03 PM
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Nothing to do with 1930s regulations. He's a private soldier wearing a durzi tailored jacket for walking-out, some time between 1905 and 1918. The Wolseley helmet had gone for other ranks by 1930, as had the 'OXFORD' title, and also the men were wearing hose tops, absent in this photo. Pre-war, men were often encouraged to procure a more officer-like jacket for walking-out, and this could extend to nether garments too, such as narrowing of long trousers and in some units fitting straps to go under insteps. The durzis (native tailors) in the regimental bazaar, who paid a fee to the regiment (CO's fund) for their pitch (collected by the QM), made their money from cheap tailoring for the soldiers and their wives. There were limits of course to what soldiers were allowed to wear, it was not a free-for-all, and each regiment had its own policy. There were generally accepted modifications that added to smartness without making a man appear above his station. This culture often carried on with the 'garrison' and 'TF' battalions that replaced regular units sent to theatres of war in 1914, particularly as the COs were invariably ex-regulars. The idea of men having 'props' for photos is a complete fallacy, and there is no evidence for it whatsoever. It was initially not usual to wear the OLI's unique regimental collar badge on KD, but is the kind of thing that was frequently permitted on a walking-out-dress garment, as it had been for the 'whites' worn in some stations pre-war.

Although the button and gimp cord pattern of collar badge is that generally worn by officers and warrant officers (from 1883 no collar badge was worn by remaining ranks on full dress), it was worn on KD by all ranks of the 1st Battalion before WW1, and there are photos of these in use. Interestingly this is not recorded in Churchill's magnum opus on collar badges, which goes to show how some regimental idiosyncrasies can be missed.
The 2nd Battalion Oxfordshire Light Infantry (Buckinghamshire added in 1908) was in India from 1866 until 1903, when it was relieved by the 1st Battalion of the regiment, who remained until the outbreak of war in 1914. The soldier shown is almost certainly from the 1st Battalion pre-war. The principal station was at Ahmednagar, but it was common for each battalion to have a number of outstations to be manned by a company, or two, on rotation.
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Last edited by Toby Purcell; 21-03-20 at 05:54 PM.
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Old 20-03-20, 02:20 PM
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I did wonder at his less than smart turnout, apparent youth and the absence of medal ribbons! That is why I wrote “Possibly”. Always good to see detailed information that is posted with absolute certainty.

Tim
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Old 20-03-20, 04:11 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by grey_green_acorn View Post
I did wonder at his less than smart turnout, apparent youth and the absence of medal ribbons! That is why I wrote “Possibly”. Always good to see detailed information that is posted with absolute certainty.

Tim
Yes, you're right Tim, there were lots of clues.
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Old 20-03-20, 06:57 PM
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I had forgotten about the Durzis, among the ubiquitous vendors to the army in India. There certainly was a degree of freedom among British battalions as to what they could wear. Of course, much of these uniform and insignia anomalies are not recorded, or if they were, are now lost.
I still think that in many old cabinet photos, props were sometimes used for the "photo op", but we may never know just when.

CB
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Old 20-03-20, 07:43 PM
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I disagree. There is absolutely no evidence, zero, nil, that soldiers resorted to what would in effect be a dressing up box in photographic studios. I’ve lost count, for example, of the number of people that account for a British soldier during WW1 holding a swagger stick, by asserting that he has obtained it as a prop from the photographic studio concerned, when in fact it was routinely laid down in regimental and battalion standing orders that regimental canes were to be carried when walking out. It is utter nonsense, which is why you never see such things referred to or suggested by principal British uniform historians, such as Lawson, Carman, Edwards, Barthorp, and Westlake.

Last edited by Toby Purcell; 21-03-20 at 05:56 PM.
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Old 20-03-20, 11:26 PM
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I grant you that it may just as you say. I base my theory on this matter due to the well known fact that old personal photos of the US Military, from the Civil War through WW2, do include non regulation items and uniforms etc.
For example, there are numerous photos of US Army soldiers at the end of WW2 actually wearing someone else's Ike jacket. Often they would borrow a jacket that was patched up and resplendent with DUIs on the collar etc., as insignia was not always available for their own and they wanted an impressive photo.
I just can't help thinking that something similar did occur in the British Army over the years. Soldiers always want to spruce up for the photo.

CB
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Old 21-03-20, 12:11 AM
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With the greatest respect to the US Army the cultures are very different. Generations of British soldiers "walking-out" (a privilege and not an automatic right) were required to book out first at the guardroom/guardhouse, where they were formally inspected before being permitted outside the unit lines. Similarly, they were required to book back in upon return. As I explained above, dress was strictly controlled, at unit level.

Last edited by Toby Purcell; 21-03-20 at 05:56 PM.
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Old 22-03-20, 12:42 AM
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Point well taken and I accept your explanation! I have a particular fondness for British India and often wondered at the, what I had thought, inexplicable details of insignia and uniform sometimes to be seen in photos.
Cheers,
CB
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Old 22-03-20, 12:27 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cbuehler View Post
Point well taken and I accept your explanation! I have a particular fondness for British India and often wondered at the, what I had thought, inexplicable details of insignia and uniform sometimes to be seen in photos.
Cheers,
CB
I can totally understand that. In recent times I have always found the regular US Army to be THE model for immaculate uniformity in their turn-out, with an excellent laundering ‘system’, too. By contrast the British regimental system encourages idiosyncratic differences between regiments that became the despair of government financiers, who always tried to control expenditure to an acute degree. It was (is still) a constant battle between the two.

In India things were different because labour was so cheap and each cantonment was in effect a mini-economy under the control of the commanding officer, or garrison commander, depending upon the size. No one could work within the cantonment lines without his permission (a system originated by the Honourable East India Company) and vendors and merchants had to pay for their ‘pitch’ within via a regular rent. This money went towards the internal economy (as it was called) of the unit(s) within and was managed by the unit quartermaster on behalf of the CO. That system, along with soldiers subscriptions at nominal, peppercorn rates, enabled barbering (including hair cutting), laundering, tailoring, sweeping, grass cutting, latrine emptying, water carrying, and air fanning (to mention just the most common) to all be on-hand and integral. Indeed until after the Indian Mutiny (aka 1st war of independence) all these functions moved with the regiments on campaign in a long snaking trail. This was a mutual reliance because if the soldiers left them behind their income and economic life support collapsed.

One effect of this is that the difference in the lifestyle and culture between the ‘home’ battalion(s) back in Britain and the ‘foreign service’ battalion(s) in widespread garrisons was quite stark. As an example NCOs of all ranks on foreign service often wore mess dress in emulation of their officers, because cloth and tailoring was cheap. But the home battalion could not afford this and even sergeants, whose mess kit was not publicly funded (issued), would generally use their full dress tunics, unbuttoned with shirt and black tie beneath, as a form of mess dress.

Within this culture each and every regiment might do something different, some with pockets here, some with them there, and some with none at all. Study reveals a huge variety of small idiosyncrasies that are sometimes so subtle as to be almost indiscernible, but once one knows what to look for they can be seen. The fact that each cavalry regiment, each infantry battalion and each artillery brigade had a sergeant, master tailor, also provided a focus and structure that under the close observation of adjutants and sergeant majors of battalion enabled a uniformity within each unit. As a result you might see something completely different between the first and second battalions of the exact same regiment, especially if they had different lineages prior to July 1881, but these most certainly did not originate from some dressing up box in a photographic studio. If you see something that you don’t understand please post it and I’ll be happy to interpret it for you, at the same time providing references where they are available.

Last edited by Toby Purcell; 22-03-20 at 01:29 PM.
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