Gay Liveries of Old-Time British Army

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 10, 27 January 1937, Page 12

Gay Liveries of Old-Time British Army

How Modern Uniforms Evolved From The King's Scarlet

HE announced intention of the War Offlce to dress in jDlue uniforms the troops who will take part in the Coronation parades brings into prominence again the

mucn-aeoaiea suoject oi our post-war reliance upon khaki as the distinctive wear of members of his Majesty's army (writes Major J. T. Gorman in the Daily Telegraph). • Khaki fleld-service dress took the place of scarlet coat, bright buttons and pipeclay after the Boer War. But the soldier's dress in previous centuries had undergone many modifications. Uniform, in the sense of precise uniformity, dates in the British Army from scarcely more than a century ago. Mediaeval soldiers, the retainers of different great nobles, carried only distinctive badges on hat or arm. Later, sashes or brassards of different colours were worn, and at the beginning of the Civil Wai; the Parliament's forces were distinguished by orange scarves. The regiments of this period were called by their leader's names, and the rarik and file, who could not afford the expensive buff-coat or body-armour, wore the leader's liveries rather than uniform. Thus Newcastle's "White Coats" died gallantly for the .King at Marston Moor in jerkins of undyed wool. AT the time of the Monmouth Rebellion and the Revolution, when many regiments were added to.the British Army, the long coat buttoned from throat to knee was universal. Units were distinguished by linings of different colours, which showed at the revers and cuffs, and were later to become "facings." These were generally chosen by the colonels raising tl\e regiments. In the case of the "Queen's," the name and the sea-green colour referred to Catharine of Braganza. During Marlborough's wars one of the first evolution?— or revolutions— effected by private soldiers in the dress of the British Army took place. The long coats, proved cumbrous on the march: accordingly the men buttoned back the front flaps, to leave the legs free, starting a new fashion which the now useless buttons at the backs of military tunics and some civilian coats still commemorate. Crimson silk sashes were now adopted

by offlcers and sergeants: these had a hole at each end, through which a pole could be run, forming a hammoek to carry the wearer off the field if wounded. The sashes survive, though not with the immense width and length which enabled them to be used as stretchers. They are the same 'which the sergeants of tpe Somersetshire Light Infantry wear in the officer-fashion of that day, an honour signalising the bravery displayed by these ranks at Culloden, when casualties obliged sergeants to command companies. Painfully high and tight black leather stocks took the place of the loose scarves of earlier days. Equally stiff cylindrical lacquered leather shakos, copied from the Austrian army, had superseded, in the rank and file, the variously cocked hats, already supplanted in Grenadier Companies and some whole regiments by the mitre-shaped or conical grenadier caps which simplifled unslinging the musket. QN the whole, it was uncomfortably and unserviceably arrayed soldiers who entered the Great War of the French Revolution and Napoleon; and, as before, the privates proceeded to make their own reforms. Wellington's men of the Peninsula and Waterloo, unlike those "who fought at Minden," discarded stocks, hair-p'qWder and gaiters, and slit their tight breeches above the ankle to allow' free movement. The Artillery drivers of 1793 dressed in ' ploughman's gaiters, a long smock frock and loosely knotted neck-kerchief, surmounted by a steeple-crowned "Mother Shipton" hat with yellow band and white cockade. This stage yokel's outfit was completed by a long whip. JjACK of uniformity in uniform was still markedly In evidence. Grattafi relates that in 1810 hardly two offlcers dressed alike, grey, brown or grey coats were worn indiscriminately with the "old red rag." Captain Adair, of the 88th, appeared in a light blue frock-coat richly frogged wiGi lace, a green velvet waistcoat and blue web pantaloons. Hats varied from the small, plain "cock" of Wellington to Beresford's multi-feathered headgear, and the famous top-hat which Picton wore until his death at Waterloo. After this go-as-you-please period came, under George IV. and William IV., a return? to peace— and the first rigidly defined uniforms for the whole Army.

It is said that in devising the Lancer dress King George supervised the fltting of the offlcers' jacket, and ordered the tailor to cut smooth every wrinkle and fine-draw the seams, saying "in military dress a wrinkle is unpardonable, but a seam admissible." These seams traditional^ originated the piping on Lancers' uniforms. The new Hussar dress, the culrasses revived for the Household Cavalry, the high bearskin caps won by the Guards as a Waterloo honour— for which the Palace sentry-boxes had to be raised — were adapted from the enemy, as had happened before. • There were absurd innovations, such as deprivlng Dragoons of buttons and substituting hook s and eyes, whilst Hussars had flve closely-set rows of buttons on their Jackets and as many more on the slung pelisse. Close-fitting uniforms, tight collars, bell-topped shakos and unserviceable white pantaloons for summer were features of the '30's and '40's. Braiding, lace and trouser stripes were now a "sealed pattern" affair, and in the infantry Grenadier companies wore a bearskin and Light companies a "bob" Iiistead of a plume in their shakos. ... y^AR changes again. In the Crimea belts and collars were loosened and a smaller "postman" shako prepared the way for the spiked helmet, together with the scarlet tunic of pre-Great War days, On that tunic were vislble other survivals besides those already noted. In some line regiments a black "worm" in the gold lace traditlonally— although, perhaps, erroneously— denotes a perpetual mourning for some famous general, Wolfe or Moore in most cases. In the lace of the Guards' drummers may be seen the fleur-de-lys of the days when Klngs of England claimed France also. The Boer War of 1900 established khaki as the Service uniform. During the Great War and since it has, with few exceptions, superseded red tunics, and puttees are the modern equivalent of spatterdashes and gaiters, Strangely, too, evolution brought back, in those years, the trench helmets which gave our warriors so much the aspect of their predecessors at Crecy or Agincourt.