Help with identifying horse drawn equipment

[Kevin Tobin]

Can anyone help with identifying this horse drawn equipment please?

 

I thought it was a field cooker, but looking at other pictures on here it does not match. There is an interesting (?) pipe sticking out below.

 

Also none of them appear to be wearing cap badges?

 

Any information gratefully received.

[mancpal]

It looks like cooking kit to me also but again can't find an image that matches. If it is, then the pipe beneath could be stowed in that position until required on top for cooking (total guesswork by the way).

The central figure to the right appears to have ribbons on show so possibly Africa/WW1 veteran though all three look they have long kissed goodbye to front line duties. I can't say whether they wear cap badges or not due to the clarity of the shot. Could it have something to do with a territorial summer camp?

The disc visible above the cartwheel looks to have two supports to it and looks to be centred on the 'cooker', if so a matching one on the other side may indicate a pivot so the device can swing rather than spill over rough ground.

 

Simon

[mancpal]

Can anyone make out the points of tents faintly behind the three standing soldiers ?

 

Simon

[Chasemuseum]

I have an old reference which I have been unable to find so cannot respond with certainty but I believe that this is a mobile field forge and that the cylinder protruding underneath is part of the forge furnace.

 

The horse harness appears to be the 1890 pattern draught harness. This harness progressively replaced the earlier draught harness which did not have an actual year pattern but just evolved from the 1850s with various minor changes coming through the List of Changes system. P1890 only saw major manufacture with the Boer War, as it was only to be acquired and issued on an as needs basis when existing equipment became so unserviceable that it was not repairable. This was complicated by the configuration of harness when using teams in draught as the earlier pattern was to serve teams with the right wheeler in shafts, while P1890 was the conversion to pole draught.

 

Anyway, after the Boer War, the decision to move from shaft to pole draught was confirmed but new patterns of harness were adopted, with the Royal Artillery going to the RA1904 draught harness using breast collars, while the rest of the Army adopted the "Army Service Corps New Pattern (1904) harness. Due to the very large quantities of P1890 manufactured for the Boer War, both stayed in use through all of the Great War. The manual ASC Training Part 1 1909  gives good pictures of both patterns - both patterns are based on the use of neck collars. To further complicate harness identification, RA1904 was widely used outside of Artillery during the war and became the General Service pattern after the war.

 

Hope that this is some assistance - field forge being used by troops other than artillery.

 

Cheers

Ross

[Kevin Tobin]

Thank you both for your answers. 

Unfortunately I can't make the picture any clearer.