British officer’s use of Mess Dress uniform during the war.

[Wolfhound63]

I’m wondering if anyone knows if there was an actual order from the War Office (or anywhere) prohibiting use of officer’s mess dress uniforms during the war. 

I found that unlike today, prior to the 1920s, mess kit was only used in the regimental mess rooms of the British Army and nowhere else.

It wasn’t an all purpose evening dress as people assume. All formal occasions outside the regimental mess called for full dress uniforms, never mess kit. Every Victorian film notwithstanding. 

Therefore, the mess rooms being the only place mess kit was acceptable to use makes an article published in Mar. 1919 by Frank Levrey entitled “Etiquette in the Mess-Rooms of the British Army” illuminating:

“In time of peace officers dress for dinner in “mess kit”, with the exception of the Orderly Officer, who is usually in service undress blue. 

Today an officer of the Regular Army, or an officer coming from any the Regulars, may wear the undress blue every day after six o’clock. 

In most Mess-Rooms officers wear long trousers for dinner. If, for any reason, an officer is in breeches, he must excuse himself to the senior officer present in the ante-room, before dinner, for not being in proper dress. 

This last paragraph clearly refers to service dress still being used in the mess in 1919. Yet I can’t find an official prohibition of mess kit although de facto there probably was. 
 

Just wondering if anyone has info on this obscure subject or knows where to look. 
 

Cheers

Edited 6 December , 2023 by Wolfhound63

[FROGSMILE]

On 06/12/2023 at 22:30, Wolfhound63 said:

I’m wondering if anyone knows if there was an actual order from the War Office (or anywhere) prohibiting use of officer’s mess dress uniforms during the war. 

I found that unlike today, prior to the 1920s, mess kit was only used in the regimental mess rooms of the British Army and nowhere else.

It wasn’t an all purpose evening dress as people assume. All formal occasions outside the regimental mess called for full dress uniforms, never mess kit. Every Victorian film notwithstanding. 

Therefore, the mess rooms being the only place mess kit was acceptable to use makes an article published in Mar. 1919 by Frank Levrey entitled “Etiquette in the Mess-Rooms of the British Army” illuminating:

“In time of peace officers dress for dinner in “mess kit”, with the exception of the Orderly Officer, who is usually in service undress blue. 

Today an officer of the Regular Army, or an officer coming from any the Regulars, may wear the undress blue every day after six o’clock. 

In most Mess-Rooms officers wear long trousers for dinner. If, for any reason, an officer is in breeches, he must excuse himself to the senior officer present in the ante-room, before dinner, for not being in proper dress. 

This last paragraph clearly refers to service dress still being used in the mess in 1919. Yet I can’t find an official prohibition of mess kit although de facto there probably was. 
 

Just wondering if anyone has info on this obscure subject or knows where to look. 
 

Cheers

All my reading over many decades suggests that the policy on the wear or not of mess dress depended concomitantly on first the existence, circumstances and location of the mess, and second on the policy of its president under the auspices of the commanding officer.  The mess was synonymous with the battalion itself, therefore if the battalion was on operations the location and circumstances would determine its style.  Commanding officers during the war determined whether they would attempt to maintain a central mess that may be in a large billet, e.g. farmhouse, or suitable dugout.  More commonly a company mess seems to have been used presided over by the company commander and often located in a large dugout.  A good example of this is portrayed in R C Sherriff’s seminal play ‘Journey’s End’.  Manifestly, in messes in such circumstances only service dress could be worn and for regular officers traditional mess dress was left behind with peacetime kit.  Auxiliary officers rarely had it in the first place.  It was largely confined to the professional officer corps.

Turning to messes not in an operational theatre of war, circumstances would be different.  For example, in a regional command headquarters mess, or regimental depot mess, at the very beginning of the war it is quite likely that mess dress was worn to dine in the evening.  You are quite right that this was a local and intimate practice confined to the mess itself.  Prewar it was common to have a relatively regular ladies dinner night when guests were invited to dine, but as married quarters were quickly vacated, and families sent to find other arrangements close to the bosom of parents or grandparents, these erstwhile routine events were soon abated.  Similarly, whereas prewar regular officers were all mandated to have a mess uniform as part of their kit on commissioning, that was almost certainly discontinued as a requirement for both, hostilities only officers of the Kitchener Armies, and new joiners of the Territorial Force (mess kit was entirely optional for TF prewar).

I’ve not seen any formal order written, but circumstantial evidence from wartime accounts of officers experiences suggest that by 1916, two years into the war, mess dress was no longer purchased as part of an officers outfit.  From that point, dining in the mess, even at home, seems to have been whilst wearing service dress.  These messes would have been located in the regional command headquarters mentioned, regimental depots, reserve battalions, training schools, and ordnance storage depots.   Anywhere in fact that constituted a unit with a commanding officer and regimental staff.

Other traditions of the mess continued, including an organisational committee under a president (President of the Mess Committee - PMC), including members responsible for e.g. messing, wines, and property, were essential, for without them the mess system could not function.  Even battalion messes in the field, where they were deemed possible and desirable, functioned in the same way.  A good example is described by Robert Graves in his semi autobiographical ‘Goodbye to All That’, where he gives an account of the inveterate snobbery that he encountered when he visited his parent regimental battalion for the first time, after a period seconded to another regiment entirely, and found himself in the wrong dress.  He makes it clear that service dress was the attire in the public rooms, which would include dining.

I hope that the above helps paint a picture of what you seek. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 27 December , 2023 by FROGSMILE

[Wolfhound63]

Thanks so much for your reply. 
 

Your answer makes perfect sense and confirms my suspicion.

As you confirm, mess dress was confined to the Army regimental mess rooms pre war. If it was no longer being worn there after 1915 there would be nowhere else it could be used. 

In addition, according to House of Commons debates in 1922. The King had authorized service dress for Royal Levees during the war and after. 

Perhaps there was never a need for a written directive. Once the Army no longer required officers to purchase the uniform (and because of its expense) it just disappeared naturally. 

Thanks again you answered what I was looking for. 

 

 

 

[FROGSMILE]

On 07/12/2023 at 03:29, Wolfhound63 said:

Thanks so much for your reply. 
 

Your answer makes perfect sense and confirms my suspicion.

As you confirm, mess dress was confined to the Army regimental mess rooms pre war. If it was no longer being worn there after 1915 there would be nowhere else it could be used. 

In addition, according to House of Commons debates in 1922. The King had authorized service dress for Royal Levees during the war and after. 

Perhaps there was never a need for a written directive. Once the Army no longer required officers to purchase the uniform (and because of its expense) it just disappeared naturally. 

Thanks again you answered what I was looking for. 

 

 

 

Yes I think that the field location of regimental messes, plus the fact that the mess uniform was not a requirement for a wartime officers kit, meant that they went into abeyance.  I know that, other than in India, where different circumstances prevailed, mess kit did not return until as late as the early 1930s.  In many regiments blue patrols were used up until that point.  This period of austerity, as it definitely became, was also tied in with full dress returning only as an ‘optional’ item of dress for officers.

The change over of regimental battalions between home and overseas stations often led to a concerted regimental effort for the purposes of attendance at a ‘levee’ for those prestigious regiments with members of the Royal family presiding as regimental colonels.  See HLI officers enroute to levee at Buckingham Palace in the early 1930s below.

In such circumstances it wasn’t uncommon for the more junior officers to be aided financially, via regimental funds, such as those furnished from mess subscriptions, that could then be repaid in instalments.  This latter methodology had also been in pre war use by overseas battalions sergeants’ messes, where the tailoring of mess uniform by native craftsmen (durzis) had been affordable, and gave an added aspect to individual aspiration.

Edited 8 December , 2023 by FROGSMILE