Uniform

Jacket

During the Napoleonic period, infantry regiments in the British army were distinguished by different colours of cloth applied to the collars, cuffs and epaulette straps of their jackets.  These trimmings were known as ‘facings.’  Conversely, British drummers wore livery uniforms, very much akin to those used by civilian servants.  In the British army, the stipulated livery for drummers was "reversed colours", in which their jackets (with a few exceptions) were the reverse of those worn by their parent units.  Thus an infantry regiment wearing red coats with yellow facings would have drummers clothed in yellow coats with red facings.  In keeping with civilian practices, drummers’ coats were also laced along the buttonholes, sleeves and seams with elaborate lace, which frequently differed from the plainer lace patterns worn by the soldiers.

Drummers’ jackets were purchased by the regimental Colonel-in-Chief, out of an annual clothing allowance provided by the Crown.  However, apart from the mandated colour scheme and basic cut, the design of these coats was left to the colonel’s discretion.  Wealthy colonels who desired extra embellishments for their drummers’ coats paid for the additional costs out of their own pockets, and drummer’s uniforms often differed considerably depending on the wealth and taste of the regiment’s colonel.

These eye-catching garments were meant not only for show, but also served to make the drummers highly visible on the battlefield, where when acting as the regiment’s communications system they needed to be easily visible to the officers whose orders they conveyed.  Due to high battlefield casualties amongst drummers during the Peninsular War, and the extravagant expense and increasing competition between regiments associated with drummers’ jackets, the use of ‘reversed colours’ was abolished by the Prince Regent under the 1811 warrant.  Thereafter drummers were to wear red coats like the soldiers, in an effort to render them less conspicuous, though they remained trimmed with drummer’s lace as before.  This regulation was unpopular, and was frequently ignored.  Many regiments clung to the gaudy, reversed-colour coats for their drummers despite the new orders.  Consequently reversed-colour coats remained in use by some regiments until the 1820s, and even the 1830s in some cases, when the practice was finally stamped out.

As the Drums do not depict a specific regiment, its coatees are based upon a number of period illustrations and surviving examples.  The coats are ‘bottle-green’, with square-ended double-spaced lace loops, and white woollen lace bearing a double red stripe, features common to a number of regiments with green facings.  The coatee has red cloth wings trimmed with woollen fringes to denote its wearer’s company affiliation.  Some surviving soldiers’ coatees bear fringes corresponding to the company tufts worn on the shakos.  Accordingly, the Drums’ coatees bear fringes of white, red and white, or white and green to signify the drummer’s assignment to the grenadier, battalion and light infantry companies respectively. 

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