Much of my current research time has been spent looking into the issue of the uniforms of the 42nd regiment during their 1756-67 deployment to North America. In this I was attempting to nail down when the regiment switched from a single breasted to a lapeled coat, and the ensuing change in the style with which the regimental lace was sewn to the coats. This turned out to be a rabbit hole of epic proportions. What I seem to have found is that regimental lace and falling collars were only worn by the Grenadier company of the 42nd until the Spring of 1761. At that time the regiment’s coats switched from the classic single breasted coat shown in all the images of the regiment to a lapeled style of coat, and most likely the lace was at that time changed to the Bastion style of lacing. But that style of coat was not worn for very long, as I shall lay out later.
I have come to this conclusion based off of a review of all the known images of enlisted men of the Regiment going back to the time of their being formed into a regiment from Independent Companies, as well as a number of written sources.
A review of the images shows 19 (watercolors, engravings and oil paintings) without any lace, 2(watercolor and oil) showing lace, 1 image (42 Clothing book) showing what might be button holes bound with a contrasting color and 6 images that it is impossible to tell if there was or was not lace on the coat. So in some respects, not lacing the coats has been staring us in the face for the last 30+ years that I have been doing Highland reenacting, but it never clicked. For me it is rather ironic. The 78th company that I helped found, we wanted to do the 42nd, but the cost of the lace was more than a Brown Bess musket!
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| Detail from "Fashionable people thronging St James's Park" c.1745 Attributed to Joseph Nickolls shows 2 sholdiers of the Highland Regiment, one without lace on his regimental coat. https://www.rct.uk/collection/405954/st-jamess-park-and-the-mall-0 |
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| Farquar Shaw, Highland Regiment Mutineer https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/37050/farquhar-shaw-d1743-jacobite-soldier |
The images that do have lace are Morier’s Grenadier study and Sandby’s “Horse Fair on Bruntsfield Links” The Sandby which was executed roughly contemporary to the Morier shows a figure, I feel is a Recruiting Sergeant. The figure is wearing a laced coat, but with no falling collar. The image is dated 1752, during the time the Regiment was stationed in Ireland. The figure is either wearing what is probably plain white, or silver lace. (How early the Sgt’s of the 42nd were paying for silver lace out of their own pocket, is one of the great questions that will hopefully be answered by looking at the Agent’s book in the Lloyd’s of London Archive.)
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| 42nd Grenadier by Morier https://www.rct.uk/collection/405589/grenadiers-40th-regiment-of-foot-and-privates-41st-invalids-regiment-and-42nd |
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| Detail from “Horse Fair on Bruntsfield Links, Edinburgh” 1752, Paul Sandby https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/19098/horse-fair-bruntsfield-links-edinburgh |
The below invoice is undated, from COL Murray's papers. but we know that it is clothing sent in 1757, as that was the only time that Admiral Holburne was in North America.
Coats sent by Fisher & Pearse on Board the Transport with Admiral Holburne
197 Centinels Coats
100 Grenadiers Ditto
39 Sergeants
1 Sergt Major
19 Drummers
4 Pipers
1 Drum Major
40 Corporals Knots
20 of Red thread, 8 White, 400 needles, 40 thimbles
NB 4 Pipers caps with red feathers sent with this clothing
NB 4 Pipers knots ordered to be sent
A copy of this sent to the LtCol & Quartermaster on the back of the Invoice of Tartan.
With this invoice it shows there was something different about the Grenadier coats that caused them to be accounted for as a separate line item. When the 2nd Battalion of the 42nd was raised in 1758, there was no separate accounting for Grenadier coats, and the provided Grenadier caps were issued out 4-6 per company. Why this was done is not known at present. It should be noted that the 2d battalion was a full 10 company battalion that combined the 3 1757 Additional companies of the 42nd with 7 new raised companies to form a full battalion.
This from the 2/42 Quartermaster Record Book, Item A333-2 in the Black Watch Regimental Museum.
Account of the Clothing sent from London to Perth for the use of the 42nd or Royal
Highland Regiment
698 Private mens Coats
13 Drummers
1 Drum Major
27 Sergeants
1 Sergeant Majors
1 Pipers
1 Piper Major
1 Ditto Cap
6 yards Dummers Lace
14 Drums with Cases
2 Colors, Staff and Case
100 Private Mens Caps
4 Serjeants Caps
2 Drummers Caps
4 Corporals Caps
3 Officers.
John Rylands University, Manchester University, Bagshawe Muniments, I-XI. Correspondence and Papers, V. Lord John Murray (d. 1787) and his Wife Mary, nee Dalton (d. 1765), 5/1/1-460. Correspondence, 1-408. Bound manuscript volume of copies of letters and regimental orders concerning the 42nd or Royal Highland Regiment (1756-7)
With this invoice it shows there was something different about the Grenadier coats that caused them to be accounted for as a separate line item. When the 2nd Battalion of the 42nd was raised in 1758, there was no separate accounting for Grenadier coats, and the provided Grenadier caps were issued out 4-6 per company. Why this was done is not known at present. It should be noted that the 2d battalion was a full 10 company battalion that combined the 3 1757 Additional companies of the 42nd with 7 new raised companies to form a full battalion.
This from the 2/42 Quartermaster Record Book, Item A333-2 in the Black Watch Regimental Museum.
Account of the Clothing sent from London to Perth for the use of the 42nd or Royal
Highland Regiment
698 Private mens Coats
13 Drummers
1 Drum Major
27 Sergeants
1 Sergeant Majors
1 Pipers
1 Piper Major
1 Ditto Cap
6 yards Dummers Lace
14 Drums with Cases
2 Colors, Staff and Case
100 Private Mens Caps
4 Serjeants Caps
2 Drummers Caps
4 Corporals Caps
3 Officers.
In
addition to the images there are quite a few pieces of written documentation
that support that no lace was being worn by the majority of the members of the
regiment. The most telling is the results of a meeting of the General Officers Clothing board. This is found in WO 7-26. Thanks to Alex Burns for his help in acquiring these War Office papers. To set the stage, it is worthwhile to look at entries not just for the 42nd, but also for the 78th Regiment.
So here we see that despite the request to make uniforms for units going to North America without lace not being approved in 1758, that some Regimental Agents were doing just that. So then the next week, the 42nd's clothing patterns are presented and:
London, 10 Dec 1759
Sir,
Mr Ross Agent to Col Frasers Battalion having represented to
His Excellency Field Marshal Lord Viscount Ligonier that there having been no
lace last year upon the clothing of the said battalion, and that there is not
time at present for making the quantity requisist to lace the clothes according to the Directions of the General Officers of the Clothing Board, His Lordship orders
me to acquaint you that he has consented to that Battalions clothing be made
up(For this time only) without lace, with which I am to desire you will be
pleased to acquaint the Clothing Board.
I am
I am
Sir, Your most obedient Humble Servant
Rob Napirer Adj General
To Wm Fauquier Esq
To Wm Fauquier Esq
So here we see that despite the request to make uniforms for units going to North America without lace not being approved in 1758, that some Regimental Agents were doing just that. So then the next week, the 42nd's clothing patterns are presented and:
Sir,
I am
ordered by the Clothing Board held here today, to acquaint you that as they
approached the case of want
of time to lace COL Fraser’s Battalion has been misrepresented to his Excellency Field Marshal Lord Viscount
Ligonier; and Lord John Murray’s Patterns, which were under the same Circumstances, and
therefore postponed at the last board, were on this day provided properly laced
and lapelled; and Mr Mann the Clothier having engaged to the board that Col Fraser’s shall be laced and
lapelled in time; They desire you will present to his Lordship that as the reason for not complying
with the General Order is hereby removed.
They imagine his Lordship will
think it proper that they should see his Majesties Orders complied with and have ordered that the
Patterns of a clothing properly laced and lapelled to be exhibited at another Board to be held on
Monday next. I am with the Greatest respect,
Sir
Your
most Obedient Humble Servant
Wm Fauquier
To LT General Napier
At the
time of this inspection the clothing for Campaign season 1760 would have already been shipped
to North America so the earliest that the change to a coat with lapels and laced for the enlisted men could have happened was for the Campaign season of 61, and we see in the
surviving Stewart Orderly book the following entry:
Montreal 27 th April 1761. Reg tl Orders.
The tailors to be employed in
altering the mens waistcoats according to the pattern of last year but to make them longer in the body and the
buttonholes broader in order to correspond the
better with the lace on the new clothing. Such men who have spare
waistcoats are to have theirs altered
first, beginning with the oldest company, afterwards as the season grows warmer
the men who have one waistcoat may more
conveniently spare them, as they will be altered in one day. Such men who have no sufficient waistcoats of
any kind, must wait till the arrival of the clothing in order to have their old coates converted
into waistcoats.
My
reading of this is that the entire regiment now had bastion laced coats and
waistcoats, as seen in 2 images of officers, one being the Campbell of Melfort
image below, the other being an officer of the 42nd that is shown in the Dominic Serres painting titled "The British Attack on the Citadel of Martinique, January 1762. That image can be found here:
The coats of both of these officers certainly
have lapels and bastion loop lacing, and Campbell of Melfort’s white waistcoat has bastion lace loops on
it as well.
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| Captain John Campbell of Melfort, circa 1762Black Watch Museum, Balhousie Castle (Photograph Courtesy of Ian McCulloch) |
It should be noted that the Officers of the regiment had adopted lapels and collars as much as a year earlier than this.
Gen. Orders given at Fort Edward 31 st January 1760.
The officers of both battalions (it is agreed) are to be uniform in their regimental frocks, which are to be made with a lapel, a collar and a slash cuff, the buttons to be the same as those sent from England for their new lac d Regimentalls.
With all of this, it would seem that we could now make a good assumption of when the Regiment switched to laced and lapeled coats. But nothing is ever easy when it comes to uniforms. On Christmas Day 1762 the 42nd Departed New York on its way to Martinique, and then eventually Havana. An Army acclimatized to a Northern North American winter arriving in the Caribbean would certainly require a readjustment. General Monckton, the Expedition commander ordered that "The Commanding Officers of the Corps will order the linings to be ript out of the mens coats, the lapels taken off and the skirts cut shorter. The General recommends to them, providing their men with something that is thin, to make sleeves for their waistcoats as the troops may be ordered to land in them." (as quoted in "Sons of the Mountains", Vol I p 271) So the 42nd were ordered to cut their new style uniforms into something resembling what the unit had just gotten in trouble for 2 short years ago.
A final piece in nailing down the lack of lace is from the Journal of John Grant, recently transcribed and edited by Earl Chapman & Ian McCulloch. In the journal Grant relates the following regarding the uniform worn by both the officers and men during the regiments Caribbean service. " I was ordered with another officer to make a report to Brigadier General Grant. We were equipped in jackets without lace made to resemble [the] soldiers’, with a haversack with provisions on one side and a canteen of liquor on the other. Our few change of shirts &c. wrapped in our plaid which was wound round our chest." (A Dangerous Service, p 168)
While the 42nd was in the Caribbean, shipping their uniforms for the 63 Campaign season was hitting a snag, as the members of the Clothing Board were delegating and passing the buck on approving as evidenced by this letter.
Comptrollers Officer, 24 Aug 1762
Sir
Major General Tallbot (Who was desired by the Board to view
LT General Murray’s Clothing) being out of town, I should take it as a favor if
you would take that trouble on, you in his room, which is a thing very
customary . I am with the greatest
respect
Sir
You Most Obedient humble servant
Wm Fauquier
To Maj General Webb
Either due to the slow pace of the Clothing Board bureaucracy, or the unit moving so fast that their uniforms for the year never caught up with them, the 42nd never received their clothing issue for 1763. Redeploying from Havana to Philadelphia, marching west, fighting the Battle of Bushy Run and garrisoning Fort Pitt, all on the cut down uniforms that they left New York with in December of 1762. It was not until late in 1764 that the men started to receive back pay and uniforms. A letter from Captain William Grant to Henry Bouquet on 24 July 1764 that states that the members of the 42nd garrisoning Fort Pitt were near mutiny because they had not been paid in a very long time, plus there was a rumor their rations were going to be cut, and be more expensive and the final straw was that they had not having received uniforms in 2 years. Bouquet papers Vol VI, p 598. This makes for a rather threadbare look, not the post war "Spit and Polish" that many would be expecting.
This post might be considered a 2d Draft of something that I have been working on for going on 2 years now. It is subject to revision as I continually gain access to new information. As it stands, should 42nd reenactors consider if they are going make Grenadier caps, or take a seam ripper to their coats, or just ignore this totally?
If anyone has actual primary source information on this subject they are willing to share, I would love to see it, but actual documentation, not a modern art image from an Osprey book.
If anyone has actual primary source information on this subject they are willing to share, I would love to see it, but actual documentation, not a modern art image from an Osprey book.
