Black Backing to MGC Collar Badges

[FROGSMILE]

35 minutes ago, delta said:

I have looked carefully and can find no sign of backing on early photos of tank skippers / instructors. 

The first is at Elveden in late Summer 1916; the second is in France in early 1917. 

Thanks delta, it’s looking more and more as if, providing the black backings are genuine and contemporary, they more probably relate to an as yet unspecified particular MGC company, or battalion, and are nothing to do with the embryo Tank Corps.

Edited 13 October , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[pjwmacro]

On 13/10/2021 at 22:36, delta said:

I have looked carefully and can find no sign of backing on early photos of tank skippers / instructors

Thanks Stephen - great photos though. Still particularly love the first one!

[JamesBuck]

23 hours ago, FROGSMILE said:

Thanks delta, it’s looking more and more as if, providing the black backings are genuine and contemporary, they more probably relate to an as yet unspecified particular MGC company, or battalion, and are nothing to do with the embryo Tank Corps.

The search continues. Thanks everyone.

[Andrew Upton]

On 11/10/2021 at 20:48, JamesBuck said:

...I have these officer's bronze collar badges with a black backing. The black baize looks contemporary but I can find no reference for such a backing. Does anyone have any ideas?...

 

This photo just got posted by Uncle George on the "Who is This ? ? ?" thread - early post-war MGC officer with cloth backed collar badges worn on SD:

[FROGSMILE]

Perhaps it was a post war thing adopted by the MGC at the time when their confidence as a modern corps, at the cutting edge of warfare, was high and when they had no idea that their future was to be short.  It would explain the few photos of such an arrangement and already the corps would have been much reduced, with a majority of its wartime officers demobilised and gone home.  Sadly all the corps records, where such details might have been found, were destroyed in an accidental fire at the corps’ last depot in Somerset Barracks, Shorncliffe, Kent.  It was disbanded less than two-years later.

Edited 2 November , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[JamesBuck]

6 hours ago, Andrew Upton said:

 

This photo just got posted by Uncle George on the "Who is This ? ? ?" thread - early post-war MGC officer with cloth backed collar badges worn on SD:

Andrew Upton - thank you so much for posting this. It looks as though we have some evidence at last. Thanks a lot. 

Frogsmile - and thanks to you for the additional post as well. Interesting about the distraction of the records. 

[Knotty]

The officer is Major Archibald Sinclair(later Sir A S ) Guards Machine Gun Regiment.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Sinclair,_1st_Viscount_Thurso

Edited 2 November , 2021 by Knotty
Added Wiki

[JamesBuck]

That's our man. Thank you Knotty. So I wonder if the Guards Machine Gun Regiment wore black backings to their collar badges? 

[Uncle George]

Would one not expect to see their buttons spaced in sixes? 😊

[FROGSMILE]

2 hours ago, JamesBuck said:

That's our man. Thank you Knotty. So I wonder if the Guards Machine Gun Regiment wore black backings to their collar badges? 

It had completely slipped my memory that the “Guards Machine Gun Regiment” (GMGR) adopted a silver collar badge for its foot guards battalion when it was formed by merger with the Household Cavalry battalions and a depot battalion (the HC officers do not appear to have worn any collar badges, preferring to remain aloof, although their other ranks did).  

Previously the Foot Guards battalion had stood alone as the “Guards Machine Gun Battalion” (aka Machine Gun Guards) which had worn a different, star shaped badge, in coloured enamels for officers, but with the officers wearing bronzed collar badges initially (probably those of the MGC), although matching silver and enamel collar badges were eventually produced.  See photos below.

It seems likely that when the GMGR was formed in Feb 1918, that a silver collar badge was adopted (apparently with a black felt backing) to match the (once again) silver cap badge of the new “Regiment”.  See: https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/177203-guards-machine-guns-badge/

Just as with the Machine Gun Corps, the Guards Machine Gun Regiment was disbanded as part of the wholesale retrenchment imposed upon the British and British-Indian Armies in the early 1920s.  It seems likely that the black felt backing to the collar badges passed into history with them.

 

Edited 2 November , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[Anorak]

hi guards mgc rgt always had four lugs to collar dogs

[KENDO]

The Tank Corps armband is blue not black.

Kendo

[FROGSMILE]

On 25/10/2022 at 22:05, KENDO said:

The Tank Corps armband is blue not black.

Kendo

Yes that’s true and to be fair had already been clarified in the chronologically final 11 October 2021 post, within this thread.

Edited 28 October , 2022 by FROGSMILE