The Cuirassiers of Furness

Apologies for my recent neglect of this blog, but here’s an uncommon button with the rose of Lancashire, inscribed “Furness Curassiers[sic]”, from a yeomanry troop that went in for a bit of post-war glamour. Neighbouring Cheshire may have boasted the Adlington Lancers among its yeomanry of the ‘twenties, but Lancashire went in for a proper piece of armour. The late R J Smith’s 1983 Ogilby Trust booklet on the Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry narrates the formation of Captain Thomas Braddyll’s Furness Troop in 1819, noting that it was also known as the Furness Cuirassiers, and continues:

“There has been considerable doubt expressed as to whether the Furness Troop ever wore cuirasses, and it must be stated that no positive evidence has yet come to light, but it will be seen that available evidence tends to prove that the Troop were Cuirassiers in fact as well as in name. Major J E Willan of Silverdale wrote in the Yeomanry Record of October 1898 saying many years ago a Troop of Yeomanry raised in the Furness district wore the cuirass, and bright steel helmets with an enormous bearskin crest projecting in front … He had talked with old men who could remember seeing the Yeomanry crossing the Sands, going to and from Lancaster with their armour flashing in the sun.”

Photo Stuart Bates

It’s a rather wonderful image. No attributed cuirass seems to have survived, but helmets of the Cuirassiers are known. In 1999 Bosley’s offered a complete example, which seems to have been that described in Crown Imperial of 1982 as quoted by Smith. It is of the 1812 to 1818 Heavy Dragoon pattern, with a blackened metal skull, gilt furniture and a black horsehair mane and short plume. The original front plate carries an oval plaque inscribed “Furness Yeomanry”, concealing the title of the original unit. (Smith describes the sides of the skull as decorated with metal leaves, but there is no sign of this in this photo, and this may be a reference in error to the laurel leaves ornamenting the edges of the front plate.) The example here is owned by Stuart Bates, and the image used with his kind permission.

Smith describes two other dilapidated examples, one now lost and one with a skull and peak of blackened leather. Evidently Captain Braddyll acquired a mixed lot of these redundant helmets on their retirement from regular service in 1818.

In 1828 the Lancashire independent troops, the Cuirassiers included, were amalgamated as the Lancashire regiment, the dress of the Furness troop was “assimilated” with that of Wigan, and the breast and backplates of the Cuirassiers flickered only in the sunlight of memory.

“Ingenuity of contrivance”: the spider helmets of the Norfolk Rangers

In his 1991 Ogilby Trust booklet on the Yeomanry of Norfolk, the late R J Smith picked up on a curious account of the Norfolk Rangers of 1782, as published by Charles Tomkins in his The British Volunteer: or, a general history of the formation and establishment of the Volunteer and associated corps, enrolled for protection and defence of Great Britain, embellished with portraits and plates of tactics &c of 1799. Wrote Tomkins:

The singularity of their uniform, and the high state of their discipline, were equally objects of public attention … Their hats which were round, had a peg at the top fitted securely to the centre of the crown, and from which proceeded different chains as far as the neck, chest and shoulders, these chains appeared like radii from a centre, and, exclusive of the ingenuity of contrivance, were well constructed for warding off the stroke of a sabre from the head and neck.

Smith rightly notes this as “confusing”. No image of the Rangers in their first uniform has survived; a portrait of Sir Martin Browne Ffolkes (available here for £5400) shows not the 1782 officer’s uniform, as Smith assumed, but that of the revived Rangers, post 1794. The infantry component of 1782 was described as wearing “genteel” uniforms of green with light infantry caps; this and the “legionary”combination of foot and cavalry suggests an inspiration from the Queen’s Rangers or British Legion of the American War. But what of the oddball cavalry helmet?

Ffolkes in the Rangers’ later outfit

At first read, this might be taken for some sort of light dragoon helmet with chains around the skull, but what about “as far as the neck, chest and shoulders”? Given that Tomkins’s work included a portrait print of the Marquis Townshend, original captain of the Rangers, his write-up may well have had Townshend’s blessing, so the description is unlikely to be completely garbled. Putting aside the question of chains – how well would loose chains resist a blow? – the form is surely that of a 17th century “spider” helmet, with folding guards. Did Townshend have something made along these lines, or did he have a job lot of originals lying in the cellar? The family’s civil war involvement lay only three generations back, and the Marquis was evidently fond of armour, for he had himself immortalised by Joshua Reynolds dressed in a three quarter suit of the stuff.

It seems unlikely in the extreme that a few score Norfolk yeomen farmers would have cantered about the landscape wearing such helmets in the Age of Enlightenment, but perhaps it’s not impossible. Though by 1794, when the corps reformed, the spider helmets were not revived with them, and the Rangers adopted Tarletons, like everybody else.