Coloured Field Service Caps and Shoulder Titles

[Bill A]

Clive's post of his newly acquired Coloured Field Service Cap struck a note. It appears that many of the reigimental colours used for the field service cap were also those used on the embroidered / printed shoulder titles. Upon examining Clive's Coloured Field Service Caps web site, there is a correlation with many but not all units. For example, see the Fort Garry Horse CFSC. It is yellow on blue as is the shoulder title. However the 19th Alberta Dragoons cap is navy / french gray / scarlet, but their shoulder title is yellow on green.
What is the connection between the CFSC and the regimental title, if any?

[servicepub]

This is a treacherous path to travel.... CFSCs were approved for wear in December, 1937, at a time when the concept of coloured unit titles did not exist - other than the PPCLI. Even the Guards Regiments did not know that British practice allowed the Brigade to wear unit titles (top of sleeve) vice worsted titles (on the shoulder srap).
Many units chose to use either the most generic colours (blue with red/gold piping) or selected something in the colours of their facings. In the latter case this made the CFSC more 'uniform' when worn with Mess Dress. Other units chose to honour their affiliated (British) regimet and wore those colours. In at least one case, the Regiment de Ste-Hyacinthe requested permission to change the colour of their CFSC to match the colours of their unit title - which itself represented the colours of their affiliated Regiment.
At some point I may add unit titles to the CFSC site - where those titles are a colour match to the caps.

[Bill A]

Clive, not sure how treacherous this is? The CFSC were approved before the issue of cloth shoulder titles, as the shoulder titles were not approved in practice until 1941. The shoulder titles appear to have employed the colours approved for many of the CFSC's. To rephrase the quesiton, what significance did the CFSC colours have for the regiment or corps? I agree with your point that many were recognizing affiliations with their sister regiments, or with unit facings from the pre-1914 dress uniforms.
Having said that, the colours of the shoulder title have meaning of some sort. They either represented a corps (eg the yellow on green was the Reconnaisance Corps colours), or had some other significance, and were not random.

[servicepub]

Not related to the shoulder title issue, I thought that you might like to see a CFSC as worn by the Veteran's Guard of Canada. They chose to use the four colours (red, blue, French grey and green) of the Distinguishing Patches worn in the First World War as the colours for their CFSC.

[Bill A]

Nice. I have my maternal grandfather's CFSC somewhere and it is the same as this example. The use of the colours to reflect the divisions of the Canadian Corps resulted in a smart looking cap.