Subaltern, Royal Sussex Regiment, 1959

Description

The Royal Sussex Regiment was formed in 1881 from the 35th (raised in 1701) and the 107th (transferred from the Indian Army in 1860). The 35th was at Quebec in 1759 where it captured the Roussillon Grenadiers of France. The Roussillon Grenadiers wore a feather in their hats, and the men of the 35th took them and put them in their own hats. Thus the ‘Roussillon plume’ is now incorporated in both their cap and collar badges. On 31 December 1966 the Royal Sussex Regiment was amalgamated with the other regiments of the Home Counties Brigade – the Queen’s Royal Surrey Regiment, the Queen’s Own Buffs, The Royal Kent Regiment, and the Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge’s Own) – to form the Queen’s Regiment; which was later, on 9 September 1992, amalgamated with the Royal Hampshire Regiment to form the present Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment (Queen’s and Royal Hampshires) named for Diana, Princess of Wales.

This Subaltern is wearing the No. 1 dress common now to all line regiments. It is the same as the pre-war blue ‘patrol’ dress with the full-dress shoulder cords and sash added. It is quite smart, but rather undistinguished, and there are many who feel that the khaki dress had more distinction. Khaki dress like that, with a cap of regimental pattern as in this plate, is now commonly worn as a parade dress.