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Sergeant Major, 25th Foot 1768 by P H Smitherman Most of the pictures and portraits upon which we rely for information depict officers or privates, sometimes sergeants, but very rarely sergeant-majors. The details of this print come from a contemporary water-colour of several members of the regiment, of whom one is the sergeant-major. his uniform, with its silver lace and smart cut, resembles that of an officer, as it would today. The arrangement of the brim of the hat is worthy of notice. We have seen it develop from earlier pictures to the tricorne shape. Now the front cock has almost disappeared and it is beginning to resemble the modern version of the cocked hat, worn, for instance, by the quartermasters of the Foot Guards. A turned-down collar rather similar to this is shown on the coats of several privates of the Foot Guards depicted in the Blenheim Tapestries, but it was a fashion which must have been very short lived then, because there is no sign of it subsequently until about this date when it was worn almost universally for a few years. The turned-back skirts of the coat have become stylised and less clumsy, and the cuff ahs a slash with four buttons. Oddly enough, in the picture on which this image is based, only the sergeant-major and drummers are shown with slashes, the rest of the regiment having plain buttoned cuffs. This is explained by the fact that the uniform of the sergeant-major, as that of the drummers, was decided by the commanding officer, and possibly bought by him too, so that it would conform more to his wishes than to regulations. The familiar sergeant-majors stick calls for no comment. The 25th Regiment, now the Kings Own Scottish Borderers, was raised in Edinburgh in 1688. |
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