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  #16  
Old 31-03-20, 03:02 PM
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Toby Purcell Toby Purcell is offline
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Toby,

Very interesting information and something I have never encountered before. Was the use of the Acting Corporal Rank universal among the Foot Guard Regiments and if so have you any idea what emblem would be worn above the chevrons by the other Regiments, I can not imagine a grenade would go down too well, certainly not in my Old Regiment or the others for that matter.

Simon.
That's an excellent point Simon, and the answer is that I don't know. I suspect that they did not follow the same practice as the Grenadier Guards, just as they did not have the crossed swords worn by GG gold sergeants. If they had worn anything a shoulder title device would have been the obvious solution, but I've found no evidence at all.
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  #17  
Old 31-03-20, 03:07 PM
Hawthorn Hawthorn is offline
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Will take a look through my Coldstream photographs to see what I can find. although I have never noticed the two chevron and badge configuration before and get back to you if I find anything.

Regards Simon.
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  #18  
Old 31-03-20, 03:13 PM
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Your two single photos might show ACpls of GG .... they have good conduct badges which corporals were not allowed. How can you be sure they have ACpl status please?

I cannot get my head round acting corporal: is there any documentary evidence to counter the evidences that I have quoted please?

Happy to lean new facts as ever.
Guards Corporals were allowed it seems, unless the enclosed 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards Corporal c1918 is infringing regulations.

Have you learned something?

As for A/Cpl v LCpl I've responded in my last post above.
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  #19  
Old 31-03-20, 03:15 PM
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Originally Posted by Hawthorn View Post
Will take a look through my Coldstream photographs to see what I can find. although I have never noticed the two chevron and badge configuration before and get back to you if I find anything.

Regards Simon.
I would be amazed if any regimental device can be found for any Foot Guards except GG and the pioneer sergeants. A rose for CG.
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  #20  
Old 31-03-20, 03:19 PM
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Originally Posted by Toby Purcell View Post
Guards Corporals were allowed it seems, unless the enclosed 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards Corporal c1918 is infringing regulations.

Have you learned something?

As for A/Cpl v LCpl I've responded in my last post above.
Toby, please how do you know that he is a corporal? The Foot Guards were sticklers for following the letter of the regulations but with little ancient customs and privileges. Put simply, I see a LCpl wearing regulation GCBs.
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  #21  
Old 31-03-20, 03:25 PM
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Will take a look through my Coldstream photographs to see what I can find. although I have never noticed the two chevron and badge configuration before and get back to you if I find anything.

Regards Simon.
I doubt that you will Simon, it seems to have been a Grenadier Guards thing. It's also important to make the point that the practice was not followed in full dress. I also don't know whether Lance Corporal or Acting Corporal is correct. I have seen references to both, but just now cannot recall where they are located. I will start a search. Either way it's clear that at that time, just as there were two types of sergeant, there were also two types of corporal.
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  #22  
Old 31-03-20, 03:28 PM
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Toby, please how do you know that he is a corporal? The Foot Guards were sticklers for following the letter of the regulations but with little ancient customs and privileges. Put simply, I see a LCpl wearing regulation GCBs.
Because he's wearing a grenade, as per my original post concerning Ernest Bailey. This was posted as part of a thread that you contributed to several years ago in the GWF and you didn't demur at all.

We both know that in the Foot Guards of that time there was the rank of Corporal (two stripes), in addition to Lance Sergeant (three white stripes) and Sergeant (three gold stripes). What we are debating then is the appointment below Corporal, which also wore two stripes in the Guards. Whether he was Lance Corporal or Acting Corporal I do not know for sure, as I have seen both referred to in published print (that's not to say there are no errors in published print!). I don't think there's any doubt that there existed an appointment below the rank of Corporal just as in the rest of the army. The interesting aspect is that there's quite a lot of visual evidence that in SD (only) some men with two stripes wore a grenade above and some did not. From the case of Ernest Bailey, it seems to me that the evidence is quite clear, as I don't believe that he was on parade with his battalion, just before leaving for the front, improperly, or incorrectly dressed.

Last edited by Toby Purcell; 31-03-20 at 03:58 PM.
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  #23  
Old 31-03-20, 03:31 PM
Hawthorn Hawthorn is offline
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Toby

Could this practice be a purely Grenadier Guards arrangement, looking at Coldstream Squad photographs of the period at Caterham and in the field, the Corporals whose Squads are pictured only wear the standard two chevron arrangement as far as I can see and, I feel sure would have been a 'Full' Corporal in this role and not Acting.

As you are well aware customs take a long time to die out in the Foot Guard Regiments and I wonder if there would not still be some vestige of the this remaining if this, sort of Senior Guardsman position had existed in all the Regiments concerned.

The closest I would have encountered would have been the 'Trained Soldier' position at the Guards Depot and if this had been a universal practice surely the two chevrons rank badge would have been something that would have continued for that appointment instead of the TS badge which was adopted.

Pure speculation on my part and an interesting concept.

Simon.
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  #24  
Old 31-03-20, 03:34 PM
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Originally Posted by Toby Purcell View Post
I doubt that you will Simon, it seems to have been a Grenadier Guards thing. It's also important to make the point that the practice was not followed in full dress. I also don't know whether Lance Corporal or Acting Corporal is correct. I have seen references to both, but just now cannot recall where they are located. I will start a search. Either way it's clear that at that time, just as there were two types of sergeant, there were also two types of corporal.
Sorry Toby,

Just saw this post and you answered my question before I posted my last one, interesting.

Simon.
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  #25  
Old 31-03-20, 03:39 PM
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Sorry Toby,

Just saw this post and you answered my question before I posted my last one, interesting.

Simon.
Yes it's a strange thing, but also quite a clever way to differentiate. It would have passed into history when the Lance Corporal or Acting Corporal appointment was abolished in the Foot Guards, so it's perhaps no wonder that it seems to have been largely forgotten about. That it existed there is no doubt, what it was called is another matter, and would really have only mattered regimentally when one thinks about it. I enclose a GG training squad with a Corporal at its head. You can just make out the grenade.
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  #26  
Old 31-03-20, 03:46 PM
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Thanks Toby,

Learn something new everyday! Will attempt to contact someone I know at RHQ and see if anything can be found (May take a while in view of the Lockdown) and report back.

All the best Simon.
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  #27  
Old 31-03-20, 03:49 PM
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Originally Posted by Toby Purcell View Post
Because he's wearing a grenade, as per my original post concerning Ernest Bailey. This was posted as part of a thread that you contributed to several years ago in the GWF and you didn't demur at all.

There are no acting corporals war dead in the Foot Guards in the Great War. I do not believe that such an appointment existed except as a clerical error.

I am not clear how you see the rank/ appointment/ insignia chain in the GG wearing SD. That may well be me being thick, but please try one more time to educate me.

Do you have Bailey's documents please?
What insignia did a LCpl wear in SD?
What insignia did an ACpl wear?.
What insignia did a substantive corporal wear, and did he wear GCBs despite strict regulation [if a soldier had opted to continue "Service Pay "as opposed to "Proficiency Pay" he would still draw 1d per day per badge]?

Last edited by grumpy; 31-03-20 at 04:10 PM.
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  #28  
Old 31-03-20, 04:23 PM
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Originally Posted by grumpy View Post
There are no acting corporals war dead in the Foot Guards in the Great War. I do not believe that such an appointment existed except as a clerical error.

I am not clear how you see the rank/ appointment/ insignia chain in the GG wearing SD. That may well be me being thick, but please try one more time to educate me.

Do you Bailey's documents please?
What insignia did a LCpl wear in SD?
What insignia did an ACpl wear?.
What insignia did a substantive corporal wear, and did he wear GCBs despite strict regulation [if a soldier had opted to continue "Service Pay "as opposed to "Proficiency Pay" he would still draw 1d per day per badge]?
1. I've said several times now that I don't know which term is correct because I've seen both, Lance Corporal and Acting Corporal. There is a rationale for both, but I suspect that Lance Corporal is more likely correct, and it certainly appears in far more official references.

2. The wearing of a grenade to seemingly differentiate between the appointment and the rank seems to have been entirely a Grenadier Guards practice and only applied to Service Dress. It has long ago passed into history.

3. The following I am positive about and it was laid out previously in the VWF, with illustrations, where again you did not demur. I am 100% sure that it is correct, as at 1914:

a. Lance Corporal (or Acting Corporal) - Two white stripes.

b. Corporal - Two white stripes.

c. Lance Sergeant - Three white stripes (one Corporal per platoon was made a Lance Sergeant).

d. Sergeant - Three gold stripes.

e. Colour Sergeant/Pay Sergeant - Special colour badge superimposed on three gold stripes.

f. Drill Sergeant - Large Colour badge, upper arm.

g. Quartermaster Sergeant - Four gold stripes point down with 8-point star upper arm (other QMS wore the same stripes but no star).

h. Sergeant Major - Large Royal Coat of Arms upper arm.

NB. I am still looking for the Acting Corporal reference and I don't know if it is correct, but it wouldn't be that much of an aberration. The use of Acting as a term was common at that time and used in such cases as Acting Bombardier and Acting Second Corporal. In each of these latter cases it was to mark out the man who was appointed rather than promoted and whose substantive rank was Gunner (RA), Sapper (RE), or Private (ASC).

Last edited by Toby Purcell; 31-03-20 at 04:42 PM.
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  #29  
Old 31-03-20, 04:29 PM
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Originally Posted by Toby Purcell View Post
1. I've said several times now that I don't know which term is correct because I've seen both, Lance Corporal and Acting Corporal. There is a rationale for both, but I suspect that Lance Corporal is more likely correct, and it certainly appears in far more official references.

2. The wearing of a grenade to seemingly differentiate between the appointment and the rank seems to have been entirely a Grenadier Guards practice and only applied to Service Dress. It has long ago passed into history.

3. The following I am positive about and it was laid out in the VWF where again you did not demur. I am 100% sure that it is correct, as at 1914:

a. Lance Corporal (or Acting Corporal) - Two white stripes.

b. Corporal - Two white stripes.

c. Lance Sergeant - Three white stripes (one Corporal per platoon was made a Lance Sergeant).

d. Sergeant - Three gold stripes.

e. Colour Sergeant/Pay Sergeant - Special colour badge.

f. Drill and Orderly Room Sergeants - Four gold stripes point down upper arm.

g. Quartermaster Sergeant - Four gold stripes point down with 8-point star upper arm.

h. Sergeant Major - Large Royal Coat of Arms upper arm.

I close my case.
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  #30  
Old 31-03-20, 04:35 PM
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Toby Purcell Toby Purcell is offline
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I close my case.
Don't close it just yet. I promise that I didn't just make it up!

1. Guards LCpl in SD - Two SD stripes.

2. Not sure what you mean by Acting Corporal. A Guards LCpl was in effect an acting corporal.

3. Guards Cpl in SD - Two SD stripes (plus grenade, metal, or cloth above in Grenadier Guards).

4. I don't know the answer to the good conduct badges questions, but clearly the 3rd GG Corporal in 1918 has two GCB.

5. I cannot see the point of having some two stripes NCOs with a grenade and some without unless it meant something.

6. There is no way that a Lance Corporal would be in charge of a training squad, instead it is a Corporal as shown in numerous photos (where not sergeants), including that for c1916, which I posted above. Note his grenade above two stripes.

7. Ernest Bailey: Here is the thread concerning Ernest Bailey that you seem to have forgotten contributing to - https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/...omment-2718277

Last edited by Toby Purcell; 31-03-20 at 05:56 PM.
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