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Old 04-09-21, 07:50 PM
ajc347 ajc347 is offline
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Default Royal or Lancashire Fusiliers?

I’d be interested to check out people’s thoughts on this post card I recently purchased.

It looks to me that it’s a picture of a WW1-era Royal Fusilier judging from the cap badge. The two things that are throwing me are the use of the grenades as collar badges (I understand that the Welch, Lancashire and Munster Fusiliers wore these), and the shoulder title. It looks like it could be either a Royal or Lancashire Fusilier shoulder title and I’m struggling to determine which.

The post card is undated but was issued by a firm in Tottenham which could potentially provide some extra evidence towards the Royal Fusilier connection (although I’m aware that a lot of soldiers were widely spread around the country at the time).
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Old 04-09-21, 07:58 PM
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The cap badge does appear to be that of the Royal Fusiliers, (also worn by the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Bns of the Territorial Force's London Regiment) not any of the other Fusiliers (the Lancashire Fusiliers cap badge is a very different design).
The collar badges are the type worn at various times by all of the Fusilier Regiments, I can't make out the shoulder title.

Last edited by leigh kitchen; 04-09-21 at 08:04 PM.
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Old 04-09-21, 08:53 PM
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I think he’s wearing a club or spade on his left shoulder which could be a London Regiment Battalion patch as I understand within their Brigades the battalions wore in order of seniority heart, diamond, club, spade.

Member Drew did an excellent thread on this.
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Old 04-09-21, 11:57 PM
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Strange that he is wearing the generic grenade collar badges as the RF had their own regimental pattern and collar badges were not normally worn at all on service dress at the time of the photo.

CB
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Old 05-09-21, 09:50 PM
ajc347 ajc347 is offline
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I was totally unaware about the card suite arm badges and have only ever seen this system used before on WW2 era French tank insignia.

I've located and read Drew's thread and found it fascinating.

My information regarding the use of the grenades in regiments other the the Royal Fusiliers came from Chrughill and Westlake's book on collar badges and it certainly seems that it isn't as complete as I first thought (I have Churchill's other book on the way, so haven't been able to consult that as yet).

Thanks guys.
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Old 09-09-21, 08:47 AM
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He’s wearing one-piece titles that were not used by the London Regiment battalions, and collar badges weren’t worn by the regular battalions until around 1922, in order to brighten up and smarten SD. All-in-all it suggests that the photo shows a soldier from a war-raised Service Battalion of Kitchener’s New Armies.
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