Battalion / Regiment pictures

[Kevin Mills]

Apologies in advance if this is a daft question but how many pictures or indeed, if any formal pictures were normally taken of battalions/regiments before they went overseas? 

I'm trying to finding pictures of the Welsh Regiment in particular. 

[Coldstreamer]

It will vary from regiment to regiment. 

[Kevin Mills]

Thanks, I always see pictures of officers but not the rank and file. I completely by accident stumbled across a picture of my granddad's little brother on the web (he died at Mametz Wood). The picture was uploaded by a school in his hometown of Rhymney and now it's gone. It looks like it's from a regimental picture. Made me think there might be pictures out there of his other 3 brothers who also joined the Welsh Regiment (2 killed). Many thanks. 

Edited 1 March , 2022 by Kevin Mills

[FROGSMILE]

On 01/03/2022 at 20:02, Kevin Mills said:

Thanks, I always see pictures of officers but not the rank and file. I completely by accident stumbled across a picture of my granddad's little brother on the web (he died at Mametz Wood). The picture was uploaded by a school in his hometown of Rhymney and now it's gone. It looks like it's from a regimental picture. Made me think there might be pictures out there of his other 3 brothers who also joined the Welsh Regiment (2 killed). Many thanks. 

Such photos were not generally retained by regiments.  You must remember that that was an era when a battalion reported the names of its officers killed in action by name, but other ranks simply as a total.  No one thought that unusual.  
Conversely local newspapers in particular did their best to show photos of the ‘local boys’ that were killed by individual name, not least because they relied upon local people for their circulation.  In many cases the newspaper obtained the photos from the families themselves.  As these were often good quality, collodion wet [glass] plate images, the original prints had superb resolution (you could see great detail) that reproduced well even with the limitations of newsprint reproduction.  The newspaper images often still survive, long after the family photos have been dispersed to the four corners of the earth (emigration etc), or lost.  Ergo your best bet is to pursue your search via the National Newspapers Archive. 

Edited 5 March , 2022 by FROGSMILE

[Coldstreamer]

Local papers are you best bet. 
 Casualties may be in duruvignys roll of honour 

post specific names on a new thread , I’ve got a few pics this way over the years 

I have hundreds of pics of Coldstreamers and I’m sure others have more than me for other units 

Not looked recently but some Welsh papers were available online for free