"A British colours mystery" Topic

From Iain, an English friend of mine.

"While on holiday I think I stumbled across a rather interesting find in a small country town in Dorset.

D and I stopped off to take a look round Sherbourne Abbey. While the wife headed straight for the medieval stuff, I was rather taken by the regimental colours displayed around the walls. These were immediately different from the normal colours on offer because they were mostly of the larger 6'x6'6" variety rather than the later four foot(ish) versions which are actually quite common.


Anyway, there I was looking at half a dozen or so of the larger colours (sometimes the contemporary Kings/Queens colour and Regimental colour) of the period 1816 to about the mid 1850s when I noticed one attributed to the second battalion of the regiment of 1801/02. This is where it gets confusing.

The regiment in question was the Dorsetshire Regiment. I don't know what it is now after the latest amalgamations but the regiment was created from an amalgomation in 1881 of the 54th West Norfolk Regiment and the 39th Dorsetshire Regiment. The colour in question was of the 54th. The 54th has traditionally had green facings so that the regimental colour should have had a green field, however, the field of the colour on display was clearly yellow or buff. The plaque explained this as a throwback to the original facing colour of the regiment which was used to differentiate between the two battalions when the second was created.

Second battalions were very rare in British regiments of the period and it has always been my understanding that where they did exist, they didn't have their own colours. In this case, not only did the second battalion have both a Kings colour and Regimental colour (the former was referred to but was inexplicably missing) but the the field was apparently different to the facings of the troops (as far as I have been able to establish, the 54th was divided into two battalions in 1800 which suggests that all the troops would have had the same uniforms rather than a mixture of facings had there been different contributing units). I wouldn't have believed the explanation on the plaque had not the regimental name clearly read "West Norfolk" and been of the right style for the period.

So the long and the short of it is that I was probably standing within touching distance of a regimental colour that was carried by the second battalion of the 54th at Alexandia in 1801. Cool.

The second battalion was disbanded in 1802 – so it only had a very brief existence."

Any suggestions or comments?

As far as ~I know, every battalion had a set of colours, even 2nd, 3rd and 4th battalions. Especially if the were sent into action.
I do not know if EVERY battalion had its own flags, but several of the makers of 28mm standards do say that flags could vary with in a regiment between two battalions.

As to the colour.. my guess would be that it could have faded with the passage of time, alot of colours ive seen hanging in catherdrals/ churches have been somewhat faded and discoloured.

Second battalions did have colours of their own. Rarely were they posted together, even in peacetime. Even before the Cardwell reforms late in the century it was common for one battalion to be serving at home, with the other either on a foreign station or serving on campaign. Second and indeed third and fourth battalions, therefore required colours of their own. The same applies to militia, volunteers and territorial formations.

The 54th did have green facings, but it was 'Popinjay green' – a dull yellowish green. With 200 years(nearly)of dirt and fading – that could look buff/yellowish.

Rad,

You might wish to view

The Dorsetshire Regiment: The Thirty-ninth and Fifty-fourth Foot and the Dorset Militia and Volunteers, by Christopher Thomas Atkinson.

If you do not have access, please let me know and I shall scan several pages.

Steve

The colours carried by the 2nd 54th under Abercrombie in Egypt were transfered from Aldershot to Sherborne Abbey in 1932. A life long project of Colonel Pownall Ramsay Phipps (d. .viii.1932).

They were hung by seniority: the 1st Battalion along the South Aisle, in chronological order from East to West, the 2nd Ballalion opposite, the others in the War Memorial Chapel.

I've been to the Devon and Dorsets regimental museum, and from memory all the regt colours are variations on a theme- vegetable dyes from different decades, into different clothes then posted in different climates will do this, plus as GMB said Popinjay isn't the pea green which we tend to do facings on figures (and pea green was a different colour then as well)

Green is a horribly unstable colour. Just have a wander around Les Invalides and see all those 'green' uniforms of Chasseurs a Cheval and Dragoons that are now a lovely shade of powder-blue (including Lasalle's own uniform, hence why is so frequently portrayed in an incorrect blue uniform).

Similarly, I too have seen 'green' regimental colours in museums and churches that are now buff-coloured.

<quote> don't know what it is now after the latest amalgamations but the regiment was created from an amalgomation in 1881 of the 54th West Norfolk Regiment and the 39th Dorsetshire Regiment. </quote>

The Devonshire Regiment merged with the Dorsetshires in 1958

In 2005 came the the start of a series of reorganisations when the D & Ds became a light regiment was renamed the Devonshire and Dorset Light Infantry. In 2007 it merged with the Royal Gloucester, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regt to become 1st battalion The Rifles.

Re colour instability – I've just been looking at a Yeomanry guidon from 1854. It was originally pale blue silk, but has now faded to creamy-white. You just can't trust colours to stay fast.

However, we found a 1770s officer's coat of the 9th Foot in a museum attic a couple of weeks ago that was as good as new – the scarlet and yellow are just as good as when they were dyed.