NAM.1956-08-74-1

Regimental Colour, 4th West Indies Regiment, 1795-1804 (c). Centre design only. Yellow silk (now faded to pale buff) bearing the following embroidered design: within a wreath of roses and thistles proper, a garter design: within a wreath of roses and thistles proper, a garter bearing the title: ‘WEST INDIES’ and the cypher: ‘GR’. Within the garter, the numeral: 4 below which is the title: ‘REGT’ in brown silk upon a crimson silk ground. The garter is flanked by a native soldier holding a rifle. Each soldier is wearing a headdress with a plume and a crest, possibly a Light Infantry helmet and a short-tailed coatee of the pre 1796 pattern. Below the garter, two pineappples proper. Above the garter, a monarchial crown proper. 1795-1804 (c). According to Milne in Standards and Guidons of the Army, both the regimental and the King’s Colour (also in the collection of the National Army Museum) were in the possession of a Colonel Nicholls RA. An ancestor of the Colonel was General Oliver Nicholls. General Nicholls was Colonel of the 4th West India Regiment from its raising on the 20th May 1795 until the 19th July 1807. Probably a new stand of colours would have been made after the union with Ireland in 1801. The change of colours would probably not have been immediate but it must be assumed that the colours were changed between 1802 and 1807. Prior to 1946 the colours were in the possession of a retired Indian Army Colonel, William Grenville Mansel who gave them to an artist, C P Bowyer of Hurstpierpoint in Sussex that year. The colours were bequeathed to Miss Lines, his housekeeper and she subsequently presented them to the museum. The regiment was disbanded on 24 April 1819 and was reconstituted in February 1862.