Boys in the Military: Unknown Countries


Figure 1.-- This cabinet card portrait shows an officer and two boys, one a teenager and the other a pre-teen boy (figure 1). . We would say the boys are about 11-16 years of age. We at first thought they might be his sons, but the uniforms look like real regulation uniforms. So the boys might be his batman or aide-de-camp. The boy is not armed himself, but carrying the rifle for the officer. The se would b the case for the crtridges, although the cartridge belt is empty. Here we are not sure. The teenager appears to be an officer, perhaps an ensign ir other tyoe of junior oficer. This is suggested by the cap, white gloves, wager stick, and white gloves. Note the officer has a medal. One medal for an officer of his ge seems unlikely. Perhaps this was a particularly oresyigious medal. We do not know where the portrait was taken. There is no studio imprint. The group has a British look to us, but we do not recognize the uniforms. They do noit seem to be either Army or Navy uniforms. We are guessing that they could be the Royal Marines. The portrait is also not dated. The mount suggests the turn-of-the 20th century to us, perhaps about 1900-05, although the see seems alittle earlier. The turn-of-the century would be the Boer War era.

We have found some images for which the country is not identified. Fortunately most 19th century studio portraits identified the studio and location. This was, however, not always the case. We can sometimes figure out the country based on the uniforms, but in some cases even the uniforms are not helpful. Here we are hoing that readers may recognize the country involved.

Image 1

This cabinet card portrait shows an officer and two boys, one a teenager and the other a pre-teen boy (figure 1). . We would say the boys are about 11-16 years of age. We at first thought they might be his sons, but the uniforms look like real regulation uniforms. So the boys might be his batman or aide-de-camp. The boy is not armed himself, but carrying the rifle for the officer. The se would b the case for the crtridges, although the cartridge belt is empty. Here we are not sure. The teenager appears to be an officer, perhaps an ensign ir other tyoe of junior oficer. This is suggested by the cap, white gloves, wager stick, and white gloves. Note the officer has a medal. One medal for an officer of his ge seems unlikely. Perhaps this was a particularly oresyigious medal. We do not know where the portrait was taken. There is no studio imprint. The group has a British look to us, but we do not recognize the uniforms. They do noit seem to be either Army or Navy uniforms. We are guessing that they could be the Royal Marines. The portrait is also not dated. The mount suggests the turn-of-the 20th century to us, perhaps about 1900-05. This would have ben the Boer War era.







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Created: 8:13 AM 2/2/2015
Last updated: 8:13 AM 2/2/2015