19th C Colonial Militia Reference?

[kingsley]

1. Larger (WM and oxy) 39mm badges are shown in Grebert's book for Victoria (p156)
2. Smaller WM 33mm size (p 155) which was also worn in NSW. Also with numbers 1-4.
3. Crowned bugle for both NSW and Victoria (P12 and p151)
4. Collar badge with crown (P 150) but NOT the plain collar in my scan which I am told were worn in facing pairs in Victoria.
5. Can't find the crowned bugle with 1 in Grebert but might have overlooked it.

[Luke H]

Thank you kingsley.

The badge top right of the quartet is an excellent candidate for a Boer War era Royal Rifles Reserve Regiment.

Keith Hook tells me the badge was in blackened GM for ORs and blackened WM for officers. So this is what you may have here.

Both pictures below are from KK, I have desaturated one to hopefully show the detail better. The indicative features are the shape of the bugle and that the last band near the mouthpiece is solid rather than dashed as the preceding two.

Just an observation, the same badge may have been worn by the Victoria unit but note they are not the same, the GM badge has a dashed band near the mouthpiece.

[kingsley]

Thanks Luke for the additional pictures. The colonial Victorian badges were a lot earlier than the Boer War ones so apparently the Reserve Rifles ordered newly manufactured badges. As I wrote before, there would have been similar bugle badges listed in badge makers' catalogues and no doubt many RV regiments around the empre probably ordered the same one.
Another interesting (earlier) variety is a slung bugle with QVC attached, worn on a shako in South Australia and Tasmania.