Shako badge, other ranks, 1st Georgetown Battalion, Royal Demerara Militia, 1860 (c)

Brass and coloured gold badge in the form of a bugle horn with the unit numeral and initials, '1 RDM', on a hatched ground. With two copper loop fittings horizontally placed on the reverse.

Demerara is a region in the Guianas, on the north eastern coast of South America. It was captured by the British from the Dutch in 1796. The colony had become an important centre for sugar production and, as a result, a destination for the legal and illegal trading of slaves. Georgetown, at the mouth of the Demerara River, was the capital of the colony. The Demerara Militia was first formed in the early 1800s to assist the British garrison in defending and maintaining security within the colony. In 1823 the unit was involved in the suppression of a major slave uprising.