19th (Western) Rifle Brigade

[Sjack91]

Good evening

 

Does anyone have a photograph or any idea as to what the cap badge of the 19th (Western) Rifle Brigade would have looked like?

 

Regards

 

Stuart

[MBrockway]

Can you clarify exactly which unit you're after and where you have seen it referenced?

Cheers,

Mark

 

[Dragoon]

19th ( Western ) Battalion Rifle Brigade, Territorial Force 

https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/the-british-infantry-regiments-of-1914-1918/the-rifle-brigade-1914-1918/

Standard RB cap badge was worn.

Chris

Edited 6 February , 2019 by Dragoon

[Sjack91]

Mark I think Chris has answered both our questions. Thank you both for taking the time to input. Really appreciate it.

 

Stuart

[stiletto_33853]

They were given permission to wear the Regimental cap badge in December 1915 with the shoulder title "RB" surmounted by a "T" and had very very little association with the Rifle Brigade being managed by the City of London Territorial Association.

 

Andy

[FROGSMILE]

That’s interesting Andy, what happened after 1916, when the London Regiment apparently folded as a discrete entity with the various battalions becoming aligned instead with regular regiments?  I don’t know a great deal about it, but read a thread in this forum that referred to it.

[stiletto_33853]

They were given a separate Pay and Record Office, no single Officer, N.C.O. or man of The Rifle Brigade was appointed to them. The personnel were assembled and then invited to transfer to the Rifle Brigade.

The Director of Personal Services had decided that they could really only be placed in the Guards, K.R.R.C. or Rifle Brigade all having no Territorial affiliations at that time, should accept these men. He then decided on the Rifle Brigade and hence they were allotted to the RB.

All the medal rolls are on TP record office and very little is known of them within the RB having had nothing to do with them.

Their war diaries are a mess, although the 19th is about the best of them, with some starting on the high seas and other finishing as and when they seem to find fit. One Captain (Regular) that tried to write an article on these elusive battalions says "The only matter for regret is that the Regiment was not given, at that time, an opportunity to help in the upbringing of it's foster-children which, though there was a war on at the time might have been done with advantage and have prevented an heretical weakness for drums which appears in the later history of some of the battalions."

Certainly they were looked upon as not Riflemen and not part of the Rifle Brigade and with in some cases some amount of scorn.

As you say, later in 1916 various other units were aligned with the Rifle Brigade/KRRC from the London Regiment in an Army Order and you see plenty of Riflemen later in the war being attached to these units, 5th, 10th, 17th, 28th etc.

 

Andy

 

Edited 6 February , 2019 by stiletto_33853

[FROGSMILE]

Blimey, sounds like a dog’s breakfast to me!  I’d never even heard of them.

[Dragoon]

Shame for them really, no real identity 

 

Chris