Can anyone throw light on this one please

[Heather Positive Thinker]

Just got back from aunts in Somerset and she gave me some photos she had found. This one is of my great aunt Charlotte Horstead ("Wag"). She is in some sort of uniform, I suppose WW1 - can anyone tell me anything about the uniform at all please - I didnt think that many women were enrolled in WW1??

9247

[Little Nell]

I've googled without success. The hat she's wearing looks v. distinctive, most women in uniform I've seen have rounded hats or caps, not this kind, which looks a bit like a French kepi.

[Rachel Scand]

It looks like a man's tunic ... the way it's buttoned

buttons on her right ... button holes on her left



women usually have their fastenings the other way round

[AianC]

Her hat is a standard army forage cap - not sure about WW1, but certainly common in WW2.

Could her badges on the collar be a sphinx? A regimental crest, perhaps, but I don't know which one! It could be a county regiment so she could have been support staff in barracks at county headquarters - Just a thought!

She also seems to have sergeant's chevrons on her shoulder straps

[Rachel Scand]

Unfortunately it's impossible to see the emblem on the collar ...
it needs to be scanned decently

I've enlarged it and it is impossible to get a clear image from this scan

I don't think it's a sphinx ...

[Night Owl]

Just a thought but if it was WW1 women are on the medal cards at the TNA as well. There isn't one for Charlotte Horstead but would she have had a different surname in WW1 (there are loads for Charlotte's)?

Jackie

[Nichola]

Hi Heather
Does the picture say where the photographer was based. I have looked up Henry Bown and he is registered working in London between 1877 and 1908.

[don.t]

By the look of the collar dogs it is the regimental badge of The Queens (Royal West Surrey Regt) otherwise known as "The Mutton Lancers" which comes from the badge being that of the Paschal Lamb and Flag of St George (the flag being supported on a staff). She is wearing Khaki Drill (KD's) and on the shoulder tab would be the regimental name as any rank chevron's are worn on the upper arm. The cap that she is wearing is a Glengarry Cap which was standard wear when off duty and was replaced in Jan 1902 with a Slouch hat which was in turn replaced by the Brodrick Cap until 1905 when the peaked forage cap was issued to the other ranks.The medal ribbon might, just might, be for the Queen's South Africa Medal but I can not honestly say if it is or not. I would imagine that this was a photograph done for the real owner of the uniform to have rather than for anyone else as women did not don the army uniform during the 1st ww (in fact the first woman to go on the British Army List was Jane Shaw Stewart, Superintendant General of Female Nurse's, in 1863) although many served in the FANY's and QAIMNS (later to become the QARANC).

don.

[Rachel Scand]

Here's a link showing the badge

Medals of The Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regiment) (http://www.northeastmedals.co.uk/british_regiment/queens_royal_west_surrey_regiment.htm)

I'd have put the pic on here but it mentions copyright

[Heather Positive Thinker]

Thanks everyone - oh and don.t - how strange, so you think she is dressed in a mans uniform as a souvenir for said chap? I guess thats a pretty unusual thing to do then and possibly against the law - LOL.

Ive just had a look at the info I have on her (believe it or not, I remember this lady and her sister - they were a lovely pair of old dears, always buying us sweeties when we visited my grandmother in Rotherhithe). According to my records Wag was born 1878 and married a younger chap called George Delacour in 1907. I have her remarrying a Mr Dyer later(but this is through info my aunt has given me). So I guess I need to track down George Delacour who may have been the real owner of this uniform??

Im very very grateful for everyones in put - amazing info you all managed to find. And it would all seem to point to the photo being pre WW1 and thanks for the name of the regiment. I will have to check that out for said Delacour.

Hmm, George was working on the railways in 1901 so Im now thinking the uniform was of a previous young man of Charlottes. May be he died or they broke up. I guess Ill never know.

[Trish@Somerset]

I have a photo of my m-i-l like this, she was wearing her husbands uniform

[deletejb]

Don't know if this will help, it looks very like your one.

Welcome to the Imperial War Museum : WOMEN IN UNIFORM DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR (http://www.iwm.org.uk/server/show/conMediaFile.54972)

[Heather Positive Thinker]

How strange Trish, youd think it would not be allowed - I wonder now who the man was.

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

Didn't George die in 1907??

[Heather Positive Thinker]

No she married him in 1907 Merry.
Marriages Mar 1907
DELACOUR George St. Olave 1d 329

Blimey, see what you mean: he didnt last long did he! Their son was born in 21 March 1907 too!
Deaths Jun 1907
Delacour George 22 Whitechapel 1c 182

He was a good bit younger than Wag, I reckon she had a bloke before him - the uniform guy - as if the hat was no longer used by 1902, George would only have been 17 then and he was working on the railway in 1901. She would have been 26 in 1901 and unlikely to be interested in a teenager Id have thought.

She married Richard Dyer in 1920 at the same time as my grandparents!

Marriages Mar 1920
Delacour Charlotte Dyer St.Olave 1d 272
Dyer Richard J Delacour St. Olave 1d 272
HANSON Emma Horstead St.Olave 1d 272
Horstead James Hanson St. Olave 1d 272

[Heather Positive Thinker]

Now this is interesting. Talking to auntie I told her about the uniform being a mans one and how it couldnt be George Delacours as he was working on the railways in the 1901 aged just 16. She murmured a bit and said, Well, there was something, cant remember it properly but the second chap she married, it was said there had been something going on there for a long time.

Back to ancestry (which glory be now works for me) and tracking down second husband, Richard Dyer in the 1901 - AND guess what guys!! He was in barracks in Surrey, a soldier in the Queens Regiment - woo hoo. I think we solved who the uniform belonged to then! It seems that she must have been "close" with him in 1901 and that something happened which meant they split and she ended up married to George Delacour instead but got together again after Geroges death in 1907.

Even more interesting, auntie then tells me that Richard Dyer had at one time deserted from the army and that he had re enlisted when WW1 started under the name Cavell (!!). So Im off to sniff that one out now.