What regiment is this please?

[angel2467]

I was wondering if anyone could tell what regiment this young man is in please?  I know the cap badge is very blurry.  He was supposedly in the Kings Liverpool 1st battalion but when I looked at the badge for this regiment it looked different.

Any help would be appreciated. 

Thank you

Angelina

 

[tankengine888]

Hello

My thinking goes to the Royal Engineers however I'm not too confident with that

Someone with the likes of @FROGSMILE might be able to assist.

A name [if known] can help.

Zidane.

[tonydb]

Possibly The New Zealand Regiment???

Tony.

[Wardog]

When a picture has been colourized it often makes identification no more than a best guess. Regards, Paul.

[tonydb]

That's a good point Paul.

Tony.

[angel2467]

11 hours ago, tankengine888 said:

Hello

My thinking goes to the Royal Engineers however I'm not too confident with that

Someone with the likes of @FROGSMILE might be able to assist.

A name [if known] can help.

Zidane.

Thanks you for your reply.  I have the name of Arthur Thomas Harding and he was in the King's Liverpool and died in 1917 but someone who is a cousin has just posted this picture and said it is him and her great grandad, his brother had the picture originally. When i saw the picture come up online, I was surprised as it didnt look like the badge I expected, even with it being unclear so I wonder if it is in fact a different soldier.  Thank you for your suggestion though as if I find someone who is in the family and in the Royal Engineers it could be them.  thanks 

10 hours ago, tonydb said:

Possibly The New Zealand Regiment???

Tony.

Yes I can see why you would think that as it does very much look like that shape.  The person he is supposed to be was in the Kings Liverpool and however try I hard, I cannot make it look like that.  Thanks for your help though.

[angel2467]

10 hours ago, Wardog said:

When a picture has been colourized it often makes identification no more than a best guess. Regards, Paul.

Yes, unfortunately that is how the picture came to me. Im not sure if it was originally like that or it has been done recently.  It is also a phoyograph of the photo which probably doesn't help.  It was a distant relation that posted the picture and I was so pleased as I have been to France to see where my great uncle died but his badge just didnt look correct for the Kings Liverpool which i know he was.  Thanks for your help.

[FROGSMILE]

Unfortunately the NZ Regiment badge shown by Tony dates to between 1947 and 1952 and didn’t exist during WW1.  The NZ infantry most often wore a generic badge in a similar policy to that of the Australian Imperial Force, although some reinforcements left home in NZ wearing their own special badges.

I agree that colourised photographs are often a nightmare to try and identify as the artist rarely attempted to accurately depict the cap badge with his or her blobs of colour.

The Yeomanry cavalry needed to be considered, but the soldier shown is wearing an infantry issue 1908 pattern web waistbelt that wouldn’t be issued to Yeomanry unless they’d been converted to infantry.

The shape of the cap badge certainly doesn’t match with the King’s Liverpool Regiment, but then again it doesn’t really take the form of any other regular infantry badge of that period.

Edited 6 September , 2023 by FROGSMILE

[tonydb]

Thanks for dating the badge I posted, definitely not that one .

Tony.

[Michelle Young]

I don’t have access to SDGW, but I wonder if it would say if he’d served in another regiment? Assuming this is the right man? MIC just gives service in the KLR 

https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/785232/arthur-harding/

[FROGSMILE]

14 hours ago, angel2467 said:

I was wondering if anyone could tell what regiment this young man is in please?  I know the cap badge is very blurry.  He was supposedly in the Kings Liverpool 1st battalion but when I looked at the badge for this regiment it looked different.

Any help would be appreciated. 

Thank you

Angelina

 

A possibility might be the East Lancashire Regiment if the man shown had been enlisted as a volunteer.  The traditional recruiting area for that regiment was not too far away from Liverpool.  From 1916 the cap badge was made in all brass, which might be why the picture artist chose the yellow to depict the badge**.

**it was more traditionally made in white metal with a gilding metal rose in the centre.

Edited 6 September , 2023 by FROGSMILE

[Allan1892]

47 minutes ago, Michelle Young said:

I don’t have access to SDGW, but I wonder if it would say if he’d served in another regiment?

Only states 1st Btn; KLR

[angel2467]

9 hours ago, FROGSMILE said:

A possibility might be the East Lancashire Regiment if the man shown had been enlisted as a volunteer.  The traditional recruiting area for that regiment was not too far away from Liverpool.  From 1916 the cap badge was made in all brass, which might be why the picture artist chose the yellow to depict the badge**.

**it was more traditionally made in white metal with a gilding metal rose in the centre.

Thank you for this suggestion.  Unfortunately, I know little about him other than he was orphaned and was sent to a home in Liverpool. Then he was killed in 1917 and my great grandfather was his next of kin.   

I read somewhere that the 1st battalion were reservists. Does that mean that he would already be in the army before the war began?  I hope you dont mind me asking but you clearly have a vast knowledge.

Thank you

Angelina

 

[FROGSMILE]

On 06/09/2023 at 23:02, angel2467 said:

Thank you for this suggestion.  Unfortunately, I know little about him other than he was orphaned and was sent to a home in Liverpool. Then he was killed in 1917 and my great grandfather was his next of kin.   

I read somewhere that the 1st battalion were reservists. Does that mean that he would already be in the army before the war began?  I hope you dont mind me asking but you clearly have a vast knowledge.

Thank you

Angelina

 

I’m glad to help a little Angelina.  Most regular infantry regiments like the KLR and ELR had two battalions made up from regular army soldiers, the 1st and 2nd, and prewar one battalion would be overseas and the other somewhere in the British isles.

The 3rd Battalion was a Reserve unit where recruits could undergo centralised training and also be administered if on long term sick lists until they were fit again.  As well as training it was the 3rd battalion’s role to provide groups (drafts) of reinforcements to replace casualties and keep the 1st and 2nd Battalion’s up-to-strength.

Next in sequence were the part-time soldiers of the Territorial Force, whose members prewar were civilians that volunteered a few hours of their time one evening per week plus a short period during weekends.  These were numbered 4th, 5th, and so on consecutively, depending on how many units the geographic expanse of the recruiting area could sustain, which was laid down by the War Office.

Edited 17 September , 2023 by FROGSMILE

[abbrover]

Royal Marine Light Infantry ?

[FROGSMILE]

9 minutes ago, abbrover said:

Royal Marine Light Infantry ?

A good thought and I did consider that too.  In the end I thought not because the bugle on top would probably stand out shape-wise even when rendered with a blob of paint, and also the dark circle around the badge in the photo seemed excessive when compared with the RMLI badge.  It certainly can’t be completely ruled out though.

Edited 17 September , 2023 by FROGSMILE

[abbrover]

No problem