Frontier Force - Naik Adam Khel (Afridi), 57th Wilde's Rifles, and Subadar Sagri Khattak, 53rd Sikhs, 1908 (c)

Watercolour by Major Alfred Crowdy Lovett (1862-1919), 1908 (c).

The various units that comprised the Punjab Frontier Force, or 'Piffers' as they were affectionately known, were raised during the 1840s by the Punjab Government to protect the province and especially its much-exposed North West Frontier. This included the forebears of the 53rd and 57th. In 1851 the various regiments were grouped together as the Punjab Irregular Force and steadily grew with the addition of other units. In 1865 it was redesignated the Punjab Frontier Force and in 1886 was transferred from the control of the Punjab Government to the Commander-in-Chief, India. Though it ceased to exist as a separate unit after Lord Kitchener's reforms of 1903 when Commander-in-Chief, India, the Punjab Frontier Force's esprit de corps lived on as the Frontier Force.

This is the original artwork for an illustration in Major G F MacMunn's 'Armies of India', published in 1911.