"The origin of infantry facing colours" Topic

@ 42flanker

Yes, I knew what you meant, I was just drawing attention to the fun fact that anyone who thought there was only one regiment with the text string "Cameron" in its title needed to be aware of the 26th!

Here are the Schematics for the British and Scottish militia Regiments as listed by Hamilton-Smith in his 1814 chart (The Irish to follow soon) Just to say that some of those listed by Hamilton-Smith are inaccurate, but there may be even more inaccuracies as to find out what lace patterns, spacings, shapes and even correct hue of facing colour for most regiments are scarce. I could spend money and huge amounts of time on more research but hey, I have the Yeomanry and regular cavalry to do yet!

Here's my charts. Notice the difference between mine and Hamilton-Smiths original which is reproduced below.

Hamilton-Smith

going back to the regular regiments; whilst researching I have found (I have three contemporary pictures)that the 74th Regiment of foot also had square pair spacings and not as is listed in the Bosset/Hamilton-Smith charts as 'square single and repeated in later illustrations

Paul :)

Paul

Blimey, that is a fabulous resource!!! Well done, that man! Which bit indicates the offers' lace colour? Is it the diagonal bar?

You are filling in yawning gaps in my information. Have you got anything on the volunteers? I'm interested in the Ashford Light Infantry, 170-odd effectives rated fit to serve with troops of the line and commanded by a Major Mascal, who was later at Corunna and whose descendant was at my old college…

Also – what is the facing colour for regiment 32, the 1st and 3rd West Yorks?

Yes, the diagonal bar is indeed the regimental officers lace colour.

The Green for the Yorks is Gosling Green and the other is pale yellow.

For those wondering what the colour is called for the East and West Kents, It's 'Kentish Grey' which is a light bluish grey colour.

Paul :)

The two things that really leap out as unexpected in those figures is how many militia regiments had a 'Royal' designation and hence garter blue facings, and how many light regiments there were – 9 of the 90 you've listed, with four of the 9 in rifle green.

Would they have followed the regulars in having light regiments in stovepipe shakoes throughout the period? Or might the militia lights have got the Belgic? And were those in green armed with rifles?

As for the Ashford light Infantry, I'm afraid that I have no idea if the uniform for the light company was similar to the 95th's (Some militia regiments clothed and armed their light infantry companies a la the 95th). perhaps they were, but I have no information on that point but they would have been part of the west Kent militia. Headdress (As with most militia uniforms at this period) is rather sketchy, but they did at this point try as much as possible to follow regular regiments in dress code.

Here are the Irish Militia Schematics.

I have had to amend the British line regiments schematics because I have had to incorporate the amendments of the 58th, 74th and 98th regiments, all of them are shown incorrect in the de Bosset/Hamilton-Smith charts. So along with the 78th which is also depicted wrong, I have found a total (And there may be more to come) Four mistakes.

I'll post the amended charts 'which also comes with the regimental name this time' along with examples of contemporary pictures showing the correct uniform for those 'incorrect' regiments listed above.

Paul :)

So, does anyone do this for anyone other than the British?