"General Post Office Rifles , Egypt 1882" Topic

The Post Office Rifles, or more properly the 24th Middlesex Rifle Volunteers, are one of the more unusual units of the era.

There is a colour plate of them (smartly dressed in a blue tunic with green collar and cuffs and dark trousers) in The Sudan Campaigns 1881-1898 – Osprey Men At Arms series. I know they have a battle honour 'Egypt 1881', but I would dearly like to find out more. Methinks a unit ideally suited to a number of scenarios!

Cheers

I seem to recall they saw action once. The only volunteer rifle unit to do so at the time.

My family were working for the PO in Middlesex at the right time but try as I might I had to give up looking for that elusive link as none of them served with the unit. A bit of time on Google will give you a bit more info. I have a couple of bases of them in my Sudan army.

I painted a unit for my Sudan army. I think there was only a company or 2. They were used to man the telegraph.

Timmo – I have a similar problem with my family history. My Great, Great Grandfather was a postman in nearby Buckinghamshire. He was the son of a soldier and on the 1901 census he is resident in a convalescent home in Dover that was used by the army in WWI but there are no records of it before that. So I was thinking PO Rifles Boer War but can't find any records either – quite frustrating !