Help Please Identifying Uniform - Joseph O'Neill

[FROGSMILE]

42 minutes ago, corisande said:

His service number is given in some sources as 1/9357

That’s interesting, his 5th Battalion connection seems more suspect now unless he served with both. 

[corisande]

7 minutes ago, poona guard said:

ending up in Salonika with the 5th.

 

He certainty was with 5th btn when he was KIA in Dec 1915 in Salonika

Edited 21 November , 2022 by corisande

[FROGSMILE]

44 minutes ago, poona guard said:

A further thought. The use of the harp was probably used by the battalion that served in India as the elephant was used by another regiment. He was a pre-war regular who returned to the country with the battalion but did not get the 1914 star because he may have been unfit at the tiem and there were a lot of reservists, consequently he may then have gone to the depot and been kept (if unfit at the time) and as a regular given a rank and been used to train the new recruits hence ending up in Salonika with the 5th. They did use the collar harp and had a completely different pagri flash.

When looking at his moustache I thought it looked typical of a prewar regular.  Service pre war and recall as a reservist would make sense.  There were several regiments that used the elephant as collar insignia as you say.  The questionnaire evidence seems to suggest that every battalion overseas used it, but that wasn’t always the case.  There’s a past thread in the forum showing a battalion pre 1900 in India with elephant collars and all the photos of the mutineers battalion post war don’t show collar badges at all.  There’s a fair bit of inconsistency that’s puzzling.  The elephant had been the old 94ths collar badge, whereas the 88th favoured the harp, so ostensibly it suggests a practice related to 1st and 2nd battalions.  A not uncommon phenomenon. 

Edited 21 November , 2022 by FROGSMILE

[poona guard]

All the regimental numbers around his ended up in France and got the 1914 star so he was left behind for some reason.