Infantry Regimental Uniforms, 1850-1960

These prints were published in 1970 by © Hugh Evelyn and drawn by Colonel Philip Henry Smitherman, Royal Corps of Signals (1910-1982). They are 24.5 x 37.5 cm (9 ½ ″ x 14 ½ ″) on medium cardstock weighing 144 g/sm² faced in light greyish blue (RGB: d4e1e8), backed in white. Shown here are scans of the prints.
These prints are STANDARD size. See shipping charges for up to 10 prints at Shipping & Returns

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Private, 34th Foot, 1854 (Border Regiment)
£8.75
The Border Regiment was merged into The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment (King’s, Lancashire and Border) in 2004

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Field Officer, 39th Foot, 1854 (Dorsetshire Regiment)
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The Dorsetshire Regiment became the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment in 1959 and was then merged into The Rifles in 2007

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Captain, 17th Foot, 1856 (Leicestershire Regiment)
£17.50
The Royal Leicestershire Regiment was amalgamated with 3 other regiments to form The Royal Anglian Regiment in 1964

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Private, Coldstream Guards (1856)
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The Coldstream Guards are part of the Guards Division

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Officer, 1st European Bengal Fusiliers, 1858 (Munster Fusiliers)
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The Royal Munster Fusiliers was disbanded in 1922 when Ireland gained its independence from Britain.

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Major, 10th Foot, 1864 (Lincolnshire Regiment)
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The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment was merged with other eastern county regiments to form The Royal Anglian Regiment in 1964 of which it forms part of the 2nd Battalion

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Lieutenant-Colonel, 68th Light Infantry, 1870 (Durham Light Infantry)
£8.75
The Durham Light Infantry was merged in 1968 to form the Light Infantry and again in 2007 to form The Rifles

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Captain, Devonshire Regiment, 1896
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The Devonshire Regiment merged first with the Dorsets and then, in 2007, with other regiments to form The Rifles.

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Captain, Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, 1897
£17.50
The Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry merged first with the Somerset Light Infantry and, in 2007, with other regiments to form The Rifles.

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Captain, Coldstream Guards, 1900
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The Coldstream Guards are part of the Guards Division

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Sergeant, Irish Guards, 1901
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The Irish Guards are part of the Guards Division

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Sergeant, Grenadier Guards, 1901
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The Grenadier Guards are part of the Guards Division

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Major, Irish Guards, 1901
£17.50
The Irish Guards are part of The Guards Division

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Subaltern, Lancashire Fusiliers, 1914
£8.75
The Lancashire Fusiliers merged with the other 3 fusilier regiments to form the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers in 1968

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Regimental Sergeant Major, Welsh Guards (1920)
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The Welsh Guards are part of the Guards Division

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Subaltern, South Staffordshire Regiment, 1925
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The South Staffordshire Regiment first merged with The North Staffordshire Regiment in 1959 then with 2 other regiments to form the Mercian Regiment in 2007

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Crimea to Cyprus (1850-1960)

During the forty years of peace before Crimea the dress of the army had grown ornate, elaborate and impractical. The British infantry went to the Crimea dressed in tight coatees, those of the officers ornamented with heavy gold epaulettes and wearing cumbersome shakos which were universally disliked. During the war the worst defects of this uniform were remedied.

The coatee was replaced by a looser tunic, epaulettes abolished with the loops of white tape which ornamented the coatees of the rank and file. The shako was replaced by a smaller one – scarcely more popular. Shakos were hardly worn in Crimea, instead used as flower-pots or draught excluders. Most photographs of Crimea show soldiers wearing undress caps even on full-dress occasions.

Up to Crimea a battle was a full-dress occasion, and full dress was intended to be a battledress. Some more ornate items were sometimes removed but for a set battle out came the gold-lace. Crimean was the last to which this applied.
In India at this time khaki, or dust-coloured uniform appeared. The Indian Mutiny of 1857 saw many Indian regiments, raised to put down the Mutiny, clothed in khaki. When later mustered into the regular Indian Army khaki was their ceremonial and their battledress. Khaki was first worn by the regular British Army during the fighting to suppress the Mutiny.

Red coats had many critics. The 60^th Rifles and the Rifle Brigade had always been dressed in green, no doubt to aid concealment in their role as skirmishers. Lord Elcho, who raised what is now the London Scottish in 1858, dressed them in a colour similar to khaki.
After Crimea regiments were distinguished by the colour of their facings and their badges and by virtually nothing else. But the red coat died hard: on home manoeuvres and in barracks line infantry wore red ‘jumpers’, a red serge coat; the foot guards wore either short white jackets, or full-dress tunics.

In India, after the Mutiny, khaki was worn on manoeuvres; in cold weather red was worn for walking out. To this day, every old garrison town in the subcontinent has its ‘lal kurti bazaar’, or red-coat shopping area, which has not seen a red coat for 100 years or more.
Infantrymen were progressively better housed, fed, and generally cared for. By the time of Crimea they were housed in proper barracks at home, but on active service they were neglected largely through inefficiency. The efforts of Florence Nightingale in the Crimea began a general overhaul of the supporting services of the army which have ensured that now the British soldier is as well cared for in the field as any other soldier in the world.

Like all Britons the British soldier likes to feel he is part of an old-established concern, and he works the better with that feeling. The preservation of tradition, even if it is only in some minor item of dress, is an important matter and some thought devoted to this preservation will reap its reward when the British infantryman is again asked, as he will be, to stand between the country and its enemies.

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