Precise details of the British Army uniforms at this period are not to be had : the first detailed regulations did not emerge until 1742. We know the general outlines of their appearance , but in many cases not the precise details , so this figure is the result of a certain consensus.
Military clothing very closely followed civilian dress , apart from the colouring , and all Armies were very similar in appearance.
The red coat had emerged as characteristically , but not exclusively, British , but since Regiments were clothed at their Colonel’s whim, the facing colours and the colour of “ smallclothes “ often varied from year to year.
Written accounts by “ private centinels “ have always been rare , because soldiers were mostly illiterate , but for this war we do have one : Tom Kitcher, a private in Meredith’s Regiment, dictated an account for his local vicar in Hampshire, where he had previously been a farm labourer.
Meredith’s Regiment later became the 37th Foot , better known as the Hampshire Regiment .
Tom served through the 1706 Flanders campaign , which commenced with the Battle of Ramillies , a hardfought Allied victory .
My attempts to trace his whole account have so far failed : he is quoted in a book I recently bought.
He has a nice turn of phrase, and an attitude still prevalent amongst his succesors today :
“We were making forward without a single Horse to our aid, when we had the order to give ground and make way back to the river . “ Pray , what’s this ?” said my Lord Orkney , so his servant told me after. He had no mind to give ground when we were giving no quarter , nor we hadn’t neither, being up to our necks in Deadliness and Noise . “
So I thought him the perfect subject for my figure.
The figure :
All from scratch .
I now dye my own brushed cotton to make 1/6th woolen cloth. It’s not perfect , being a bit fluffy, but the best material I have yet found to represent broadcloth .
The cocked hat is starting to turn into the three-cornered variety usual during the rest of the century.
He wears the full coat over a waistcoat cut down from the previous year’s coat , grey breeches, yellow stocking covered with brown canvas gaiters . Marlborough was a great enthusiast for these, wearing them in his portraits , and ensuring they were supplied to the marching troops , along with adequate shoes .
Tom’s armed with a firelock , in this case a doglock dated to Queen Anne’s reign , with the 46” barrel. Muskets were not yet standardised , and there must have been a variety of patterns in use.
