The East India Register had noted the 4th Bengal Light Cavalry as being lancers as from 1840 but the regulations regarding dress make no special reference to lancer dress or distinctions, so it is a matter of conjecture as to what may have been worn. There are tantalising glimpses of lancer dress which possibly could be early Bengal uniform. One is the painting of the Durbar in Lucknow in 1847. This shows an Indian officer wearing a red jacket with buff facings. His czapka is without a peak, a feature of headdress confined to Indian ranks in the Light Cavalry. The other evidence of lancer uniform is a panoramic print published in the Illustrated Times around the time of the Mutiny in 1857. The mounted figure (shown in this detail) is a sowar in lancer dress but with a peaked czapka. He is simply labelled ‘Bengal Lancer’. An officer of the 16th Lancers who wore this headdress in the First Sikh War described it as “the worst headgear ever worn in Indian warfare”.
