The 5th April 1905 is the official date that the 9th were authorised by the War Office to change their facings from white to yellow. The pointed cuff replaced the round cuff in 1902 but it would have taken a year or more for regiments to adopt the changes so the 9th waited until they received official notification of the change to yellow. The photo shows a tunic in the collection of ‘Paul61’ a contributor to the Great War Forum. He says that this belonged to Sergeant Sidney Clarke. He actually gives his rank as Sergeant Drummer but at that time drum-majors were known as Sergeant Drummers. The three rank stripes on the right sleeve denote his rank as sergeant, but the Sergeant Drummer (drum-major) would have had four inverted stripes on the right forearm with an embroidered drum badge.
Members of the Corps of Drums in infantry regiments did not have drum badges on their dress uniform, only their undress frocks. The photo is accompanied by drawings from Simkin’s Soldiers: The British Army in 1890 vol II by Peter Walton (Picton 1987) which show the way the drummers’ lace was arranged on the front and back of the dress tunic. Because the drawings show the uniform c1890 the cuffs are round. The other difference is the lack of shoulder wings on Sidney Clarke’s tunic. These were red with diagonal stripes of drummers’ lace and fringed with red and white worsted. The lace was called crown-an-inch , being white with a repeating red Imperial crown pattern.
Regimental Details | Band and Drummers
