NAM.1986-09-29-2

Other ranks' full dress tunic worn by Pte William Taylor Rowley, D (Cambridge) Troop, 1st Huntingdonshire Light Horse Volunteers, 1870 (c). Scarlet wool cloth. Bodice joined to skirt with waist seam into which is let a pocket on right front. Centre back skirt vent flanked by a pleat. Upright collar rounded at front, pointed cuffs. White wool cloth piping around upper and front collar edges, centre back skirt vent, upper edge of cuff and front, lower and back edges of body. White worsted Russia pattern braid around lower edge of collar. Silver metal thread bias pattern lace proficiency badge, positioned above right cuff and extending all round sleeve. Further proficiency badge in silver and black metal thread, spangles and wool cloth, in form of three five-pointed stars, each star indicating wearer was returned as efficient five times, positioned above cuff on right sleeve. Silver metal wire basket double twisted round cord shoulder cords. Eight half domed silver plated brass buttons down centre front and two at centre back waist, with die struck design of a ducal coronet below the entwined letters ‘MV1’ (Duke of Manchester’s Volunteers) and above ‘1’. Two plain silver plated brass half-domed buttons on each sleeve at back seam above cuff and one on each shoulder. Body and skirt lined with white serge with vertical pocket in each back skirt and one on each shoulder, sleeves lined with white cotton twill weave, collar lined with scarlet wool cloth. William Taylor Rowley was the elder brother of Smith Howlett Rowley, wealthy landownders and farmers from Histon, Cambridgeshire. The two brothers joined the Duke of Manchester’s Light horse volunteers around the time of its formation in 1860.