Sergeant, 16th (The Queen's) Lancers, 1895 (c)

Glass negative, W Gregory and Company, 51 Strand, London, 1895 (c).

This image comes from a collection of glass plate negatives associated with William Gregory and Company. The negatives depict the British Army, including some members of the colonial forces, 'at home' in Britain during the 1890s.

As well as being intimate portraits of soldiers from this era, the images provide detailed illustrations of uniforms worn during the high point of military tailoring.

The sergeant is pictured in mounted review order dress. This includes the Lancer cap, the design of which was based on the Polish four-cornered cap known as the czapka. It has a black leather skull and black patent leather peak with a band of gold lace with a red stripe in the middle going around it. The upper part of the cap is made with ribbed cloth of regimental colour (dark blue) on four sides, and is topped with leather. The drooping plume is made of black horse hair with a yellow and red woollen boss where the plume attaches. The brass regimental plate is fixed on the lower part of the cap, with lion's head bosses on each side, to which the chin chains are attached.

The full dress tunic is scarlet with dark blue facings: collar and pointed cuffs, piping around the edge of the tunic, and the plastron on the front. Three chevrons and a spur badge on his right upper sleeve show that he is a Sergeant Rough Rider. Yellow worsted cord cap lines hang behind the neck, and a girdle is worn around the waist with two crimson stripes. He has a white leather pouch belt and black pouch. Blue pantaloons with a double yellow stripe down the outside seam are worn tucked into riding boots with spurs attached. He wears white leather gauntlets.

The corporal holds his lance, with its red over white swallow-tail pennon. A carbine sits in its leather bucket attached to the saddle. The horse has standard military tack, with a black lambskin saddlecloth.

One of a collection of 280 glass negatives, associated with Gregory and Company, London, and F G O Stuart, 1892 (c)-1900.