"Uniform question - 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers" Topic

On the excellent Mont St Jean website – link
the Royal Welch Fusiliers cente companies are shown having flank company "wings". Is this a slip? The side-on view shows normal tufts and not wings.

Or was this some special quirk of the regiment?

Thanks for any help

Wings for all companies is correct; "fusilier" was considered a distinction, and while the fancy hats had been ditched as impractical, they got to keep the shoulder wings.

Umm Flank Company wings is where you having an issue, In a regular line Battalion, you had centre companies with shoulder tufts and a light and a grenadier company with wings.

If the Battalion was light Infantry all Companies had wings, the same is true of the Fusileer Battalions.

Its normal British Army, everything is standard, except when it isn't.

Thanks very much guys – you just saved me from painting a mass of figures wrong! So if they all had wings what about the plumes? Were there still 8 red and white coys, 1 white and 1 green?

There's a TMP thread where someone mentions they ALL had white except the usual green for light coy. Can anyone confirm this?

Yes, pretty sure that's correct – probably due to their association with the Prince Of Wales – their knapsack badge was his white fleur de lys.

hmmm, so they'll look like a unit completely of grenadier company except for the light coy (who have green plumes)?

Are there any other similar pitfalls I should be aware of for Waterloo regiments? I'm talking only about 1815 LINE regiments (NOT Peninsula and NOT light inf)

I assume you know about the 28th retaining the Stovepipe shako rather than the Belgic? That's the only one that springs immediately to mind, but I'm far from well read on the subject….

That was no fleur de lys. That was his three feathers.
Geez, even a Yank knows that!

#heraldryfail Yeah, I think I'll just shoot myself now….

Enry Mitchell, permit me to clarify and consolidate the various replies; in fusileer regiments, such as the 23rd, all coys wore wings but they had center/line, light and grenadier coys with associated plumes similar to their Line Infantry counterparts. Also, similar to light infantry regiments, fusileer regiments wore rank chevrons on both arms and for officers epaulettes on both shoulders.
Re the 28th; it was a line regiment that had the honour/disticntion of wearing French calfskin backpacks and on the rear bottom of their stovepipe shakos small diamond shaped badge embossed with a with a sphinx with 28 below it. Ref: Brtish napoleonic Uniforms by C.E. Franklin.
To my knowledge the only manufacturer of the 28th with these features is Elite. I have the figures and they are superb sculps.
Good luck with your project.

The other unique distinction of the 23rd Foot (Royal Welch Fusiliers) was that their officers had black ribbons (bow at the top and ribbons hanging down) sewn onto the back of their collars.

This dates back to their being the last regiment to discard wearing their hair tied back by such ribbons, and when they were finally orderd to do so in 1808 kept the ribbons sewn to their uniforms in memory of this. Originally this was unofficial but it received Royal permission in 1834. During the 19th century the ribbons were only worn by officers and sergeant majors, but was extended to all ranks in 1900.

Rod