Royal Regiment of Scotland

British Army dress regulations used to be drab little publications full of infuriatingly obscure phrases like "according to regimental pattern". One exception was the "Dress Regulations for the Army 1900" (republished in paper-back some years ago) which actually included black and white photographs of most of the uniform items referred to. There were even helpful household hints like how to remove stains from the scarlet tunics that were still generally worn. Perhaps shocked at its own audacity the War Office returned to drab booklets without illustrations for subsequent editions.

All this seems to be changed judging by the Dress Regulations for the Royal Regiment of Scotland that I came across recently. Accessible from the Internet one finds numerous pages of colour photographs, a chatty introduction from the Queen and clear descriptions of just when, how and where one should wear what, if one has the honour of belonging to the newest regiment in the British Army (made up of the various Scottish regiments which had largely escaped amalgamation until the early 2000s).

One thing which doesn't change is the variety of the British Army wardrobe. There are about five different categories of mess dress for officers, warrant officers, ncos and junior ncos; green ceremonials, blue patrols, and even a special Levee Dress. The latter used to be worn when officers attended Court Functions but now it seems limited to the presumably infrequent occasions that someone is in direct attendance on Royalty.

Probably none of this has much relevance to modern soldiering in Afghanistan and Iraq but it is a splendid 64 pages. Nothing about how to clean stains off red coats though ...

I have the hard back Arms and Armour Press reprint, W. Y. Carmen which has around 500 illustrations, many unfortunately not the best quality but that’s to be expected as it's a facsimile reprint of the original Dress Regulations.
Reason for mentioning this is that on the fly it mentions that illustrations were repeated in 1904 and again in 1911 before ceasing altogether.
Unfortunately I haven't seen those regulations, so I'm unable to say if they are of the same quality of the 1911 regulations.
Here’s a letter on the regiments web site that speaks volumes which may be of interest you, if you have not already seen it while searching for regimental information.
http://www.royalregimentofscotland.org.uk/saveall.php
Also the link for the dress regulations I believe you mentioned.
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/scotreg/OfficialDressRegulationsHandBook.pdf

Regards
WF

Hi Guys,
Thought you might be interested in a NEW addition to the Regimental Regulations just announced in last sundays' SUNDAY POST newspaper.

New Hackle colours for the TA Battalions.
6 Scots - Grey
7 Scots - Purple

These supercede the regulations in the PDF file you have downloaded.

Best Regards,
Les

Brief amalgamation history.
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Here's a page showing the regimental badges of the regiments that made up the five battalions.
1st, The Royal Scots & The Kings Own Scottish Borderers - top.
2nd. The Royal Highland Fusiliers - middle left.
3rd. The Black Watch middle right.
4th. The Highlanders - bottom right.
5th The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders - bottom left.

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