Cap badge identification.

[david murdoch]

Can anyone identify this cap badge? The man in question is William Reginald Goffe. Going by his MIC and other information he enlisted in 7th Kings Royal Rifles on 7/9/1914 (home service only) then transferred to Motor Machine Gun Service probably late in 1914 or early 1915. His date of entry is 22/5/1915 with 8th MMG Battery. On 13th June 1916 he was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the Ox and Bucks Light Infantry and was killed in action 30th July 1916.

My query is what is the cap badge he is wearing in this photo, as it does  not appear to be any of these  units. He would have originally had a KRR badge, probably  RFA when first joining MMGS  then crossed guns with MMG, and finally Ox and Bucks. Wondering if he was a cadet pre war (he was born 1888).

[FROGSMILE]

It’s not pre-war as he’s wearing a 1916 pattern trench cap and his uniform is other ranks pattern 02 service dress, so we know it’s before his commissioning as an officer.  The appearance of the badge seems a little distorted, but the timeline (after KRRC and before OBLI) suggests that it has to be something that he wore whilst a machine gunner.  It’s not a badge that I recognise.  It looks also as if there is a cloth formation badge, or shoulder title at the top of his left shoulder.

 

P.S.  I think that the badge he wears might be as shown below, but bent back on each side into a curve that leaves the unusually large crown and mounted MMG top and bottom centre and the machine gun barrels slanted back giving the apparent visual distortion that we see.  Curving relatively wide badges in that way was popular, especially, e.g. in the artillery branches.

 

Edited 21 October , 2019 by FROGSMILE

[Dragoon]

I agree FROGSMILE, a very distorted badge!

But you can just make out the MMG, especially the G.

 

Chris

[PhilB]

Surprised you didn’t guess that, David - it’s your avatar!

[david murdoch]

42 minutes ago, PhilB said:

Surprised you didn’t guess that, David - it’s your avatar!

I'm researching him as part of my ongoing MMGS database project. I've got hundreds of MMGS photos and have a couple of cap badges myself but never seen one bent  as per Frogsmile's comment. I'd been looking at blow ups of this and messing with the contrast to try and sharpen it but just did not look like an MMG badge to me, hence my posting. One explanation is this black and white is a clean up of a hand tinted photo and it looks like it's been well touched up so it appears more like a watercolour portrait than a photo - so the badge may have been mangled by the "artist".

[PhilB]

I didn’t recognise it either.

[FROGSMILE]

13 hours ago, david murdoch said:

I'm researching him as part of my ongoing MMGS database project. I've got hundreds of MMGS photos and have a couple of cap badges myself but never seen one bent  as per Frogsmile's comment. I'd been looking at blow ups of this and messing with the contrast to try and sharpen it but just did not look like an MMG badge to me, hence my posting. One explanation is this black and white is a clean up of a hand tinted photo and it looks like it's been well touched up so it appears more like a watercolour portrait than a photo - so the badge may have been mangled by the "artist".

I too think that the appearance of the badge has been mangled by the artist.  Specifically the two MG barrels protruding upper left and right have been obscured, although I think you can just see the shape of where they were.  If you put them back in with the minds eye the badge takes shape; larger than usual crown, with MMG in block letters and the two MG breeches beneath.

[ghchurcher]

Hmm not sure I can persuade myself it is a deformed camouflaged MMGS badge !!