Robert Cooke joined the 9th Lancers in April 1827 as a cornet and was appointed Adjutant in that rank. His service record says that he served at the siege of Buenos Aires in 1806 and the Walcheren Expedition 1809, and was at the siege of Flushing. He was promoted to lieutenant on 5 April 1831 and left the regiment in 1842 before they sailed to India; he was still a lieutenant at that time. The date of the portrait is not stated but he looks much older than would be expected for a lieutenant. He was a long-serving Adjutant, 15 years in all, but had been in the army since before 1806. If he was born c1790 he would have been 52 when he retired as a lieutenant. It is likely that he rose through the ranks and was not in a position to afford the high cost of his commission.
The portrait, by an unknown artist, shows Lieutenant Cooke in the scarlet dress jacket of the 9th Lancers which was worn until c1842. The embroidered collar is well shown but the slashed cuff is hidden under the white leather gauntlet. He has gold embroidered epaulettes as would be expected, but other aspects of his uniform do not conform to the Dress Regulations of 1834.
The pouch-belt is fully laced with gold which looks like the final pattern of belt worn from c1846, but without the gilt chains and pickers. The waist-belt matches the pouch-belt but is too wide; it should be only one inch and a quarter wide, fastened with a snake clasp. He is wearing a sash under his waist-belt which has tassel ends hanging on his left side. This was only worn for full dress social occasions. The cap lines appear only as the flounders and tassels hooked onto the front of his jacket. There should be lines around his body, resting on the right shoulder.
John Anstruther Thomson, who served in the regiment around the same time as Robert Cooke, joined the regiment as a cornet at Piershill Barracks, Edinburgh on 30 July 1836 and wrote about the 9th Lancers at that time in his Eighty Years Reminiscences published in 1904:
‘Our uniform was — Red jacket (double-breasted), blue facings, gold embroidered collar; a short bob-tail; wore belts outside the jacket, a gold sash for balls; blue overalls, red stripe; white trousers in summer, Wellington boots; no mess waistcoats, dined in stable jackets buttoned up; lancer caps, square top, very heavy & black cocktail plume. Armed with lance, sword (curved pattern) and pistols; white sheepskin and blue shabraque. The Regiment was very well mounted — great big well-bred horses with bang tails, which had just come into fashion. Lord Loughborough would not take any man under 5ft 9ins. At that time privates when off duty wore their swords.’
