Unknown regiment; shoulder patch

[high wood]

This soldier has black "hunting horn" light infantry buttons but no visible cap badge. His left arm has a shoulder patch with what apears to be the letters BL as the first two letters and a 1 and a 7 beneath it. Can anyone identify the regiment?

[pbrydon]

I may be completely wrong but there is a picture in Westlakes book "The Rifle Volunteers" of a Corporal Bandman of the 1st Bucks RVC wearing a very similar looking cloth title ("Bucks" over "1" over "V" )

P.B.

[high wood]

I am not familiar with RVC cloth badges but your suggestion seems good to me and given that it is a cabinet photograph it is possibly pre-1914. Unfortunately, the bottom of the card is missing so there are no clues as to location, just the photographer's name, J. Griffiths.

[Wardog]

SD jacket looks to have early cord epauletts. Regards, Paul.

[Andy Wade]

Do the pants have some sort of reinforcing patch over the knee and upper leg?

[FROGSMILE]

Do the pants have some sort of reinforcing patch over the knee and upper leg?

What you can see is red piping down the outer leg, as worn by VB on khaki SD trousers (see soldier on right in enclosed photo). It seems that after the later pattern jacket was issued with shoulder straps Austrian knots in the same piping were added to the jackets cuffs. I agree that your man is a soldier of the Bucks 1 V.

Here are some some recorded comments of another old RV unit (The Kircudbright RV) about the changes in dress that it adopted when becoming a VB.

“the 1873 uniform (which remained till 1908 the regulation for officers in full dress) was worn down to May 19, 1905, when drab service dress with scarlet piping on the trousers and cuffs, drab puttees, blue glengarry with regimental badge and red, white, and blue diced border, and brown leather equipment with bandolier, became the sole dress of the battalion".