Bombardier and Gunners, Royal Horse Artillery, 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 bombardier stands on the left of the image, distinguished by the chevron on his upper right sleeve. His full dress cap (busby) is made of black fur and is the shorter 1888 pattern. A red cloth bag covers the top of the cap and extends down its right side, with a white plume made of horsehair. The cap is held on with a chin chain of black leather, and yellow cord caplines loop round onto the breast. The two gunners wear the taller 1864 pattern busby.

They wear the highly decorative Hussar-style full dress tunic, which is dark blue with red facings on the collar. Their tunics have several buttons with double cord braids of yellow worsted across the front with a loop at each end.

The bombardier wears dark blue overalls with a broad red stripe down the outside seam, over black wellington boots with spurs attached. The gunners wear pantaloons with the same red stripe, tucked into black riding boots with spurs attached. They all have white gloves, and their swords hang from the slings of their white leather sword belts.

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