Mess Jacket
Mess Dress, NCOs
Drum-Major’s Mess Jacket. Pre.2WW.
While no date has yet been established for the adoption of Mess dress for senior NCOs, it is highly likely that these white mess jackets with their red facings and twisted bullion shoulder straps, came into being in the earliest days of the battalion’s existence, and are thought to be almost unique in the British Army.
It was said to have been patterned after the undress white shell jacket with red facings, worn by the unit’s predecessors in the ‘Liverpool Scottish Rifle Volunteers’, (19th Lancashire R.V.C.) in 1860.
Worn with a white waistcoat, white-metal general service buttons, or, post 1924 with white metal ‘10th (Liverpool Scottish) Bn.’ buttons. Starched white shirt and black bow-tie.
In full mess dress it was worn with the Forbes kilt, silver-topped sporran, full diced hose, and buckled shoes. In mess undress, with Forbes tartan trews and brogues.
After the 2nd World War, jackets with red facings became unavailable, and an all-white jacket of Barathea or starched cotton was adopted. The Sergeants Mess re-adopting the jacket with red facings again in 1974. The only difference being flat epaulettes instead of the original twisted bullion ones.
Badges of rank were of bullion on a red backing.
Below are a selection of the uniform.
Drum-Major's Mess Jacket
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