This illustration is from British Cavalry Standards by Dino Lemonofides (Almark 1971). The author calls it the King’s Standard and dates it as 1906. The battle honour for SOUTH AFRICA 1901-2 certainly dates it after the Boer War but the cypher in the centre is Queen Victoria’s. The battle honours BEAUMONT and WARBURG were conferred in 1909 so the Standard dates after that. The four Marlborough battles and DETTINGEN were also conferred retrospectively but in 1882, so BLENHEIM, OUDENARDE, RAMILLIES and MALPLAQUET would have been on the Standard well within the Queen’s reign, as would WATERLOO, SEVASTOPOL, PEKIN, TAKU FORTS and SOUTH AFRICA 1879.
The date of this Standard is in doubt. It is unlikely to be the Standard received in 1868 because of the large number of Battle Honours received in 1882. However, the original Honours could have been unpicked and the whole list rearranged. In April 1896 the new Colonel-in-Chief, Franz Joseph, was presented with the old standard which suggests that a new one had been recently received. This new Standard would have had the VR cypher in the centre and could be the one illustrated here. The photo of Franz Joseph was posed to include the KDG Standard and we can see that PEKIN is one of the Honours listed on the right of the central badge, as opposed to its place below the central Union wreath in the illustration.
The description of the Standard says that the Garter is purple with gold lettering. It is interesting that the White Horse motif shows it galloping towards the pole. The Queen’s Regulations of 1898 give the length of the pole as 8ft 6ins, including the Royal Crest. The size of the Standard was 2ft 5.5ins wide by 2ft 2ins deep, not including the fringe.
