Help needed in identifying an Army cap badge

[JohnGM]

Hello,

Please could I ask for some help in identifying the cap badge in the attached very poor quality photograph? Recognition of his Regiment will hopefully aid me in identifying who in my family this soldier was, I have tried searching through 'Military Badge Collecting' and 'British Army Cap Badges of the First World War' but none of the badges shown appear to match.

Many thanks,

John

[Sepoy]

John,

Welcome to the Forum.

It looks like a Rifle Brigade cap badge at an angle, with the light shinning off a polished leather chin strap.....

Sepoy

[Khaki]

My first impression too, Rifle Brigade.

khaki

[asanewt]

This as suggested

[JohnGM]

Hi,

Looking at the original photo it does appear that the badge does have a horizontal border on the lower part (covering the chin strap). Were there any variants of the Rifle Brigade that had a 'border' included?

Many thanks,

John

[Sepoy]

Hi,

Looking at the original photo it does appear that the badge does have a horizontal border on the lower part (covering the chin strap). Were there any variants of the Rifle Brigade that had a 'border' included?

Many thanks,

John

John

The bottom of the badge is tucked underneath the polished leather chin strap. The lower "bar" is the glare, off the polished chin strap, from the flash used or simply from the light.

Sepoy

[Steven Broomfield]

My first thought was East Lancashire Regiment - the badge is at a very dd angle, but to the upper right corner s a shape which might be the tail of the sphinx, and the "bottom arm" of the cross might actually be the rose beneath the sphinx.

Is there anything more to the photo that we could see?

[JohnGM]

Here (hopefully) is the full shot.

Many thanks,

John

[Sepoy]

John

Do you know the chap's name???

Sepoy

[JohnGM]

Hi Sepoy,

Unfortunately not, the hope was to try and identify him within my family from his Regiment.

The photo is actually pasted into a book published in 1916 that had a section in it to paste in your ‘Family Heroes’. The book was owned by my Great Uncle William H T Ansell 3951 4^th Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment who lost an eye whilst in action in Gallipoli or Mesopotamia (?). As he owned the book I thought it might have been him in the photo, but this seems increasingly unlikely.

John

[MBrockway]

John,

Welcome to the Forum.

It looks like a Rifle Brigade cap badge at an angle, with the light shinning off a polished leather chin strap.....

Sepoy

My thoughts exactly. The additional bright area is flash bounce off the chin strap band.

There are of course a number of other units whose badge is based on the RB badge that need to be included in any search ...

8th Londons (Post Office Rifles), 17th Londons (Poplar & Stepney Rifles)), 19th Londons (St Pancras), 7th Sherwood Foresters (Notts & Derbys) (Robin Hoods Rifles), and the 7th & 8th West Yorks (Leeds Rifles).

For a more exotic option, there's the Bermuda Rifles.

The Inns of Court OTC badge is only slightly different.

This chap is not wearing blackened buttons, but as we've said many times before, while blackened buttons are good evidence of a rifles battalion, absence of blackened buttons does not rule out rifles - the blackened rifles buttons were not always readily available.

[Guest]

I first thought South Staffs, but I'm often wrong?

Mike