Trying to identify the ranks of 2 Royal Marines officers I've been sent 2 photos of portraits of what are thought to be Royal Marine officers, probably from the early decades of the19th Century, which can be seen at : http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/Temp/Temp.html#top ...... List member Jackie adds I have 2 photos of portraits taken of I believe, RMarines. Apparently they are not wearing their dress uniforms, but their dress down uniforms. .. I believe one is a first Lt and one is a second Lt. Should be grateful for any help. I would guess that the arrangement of the buttons down the front may give us some clues, along with the markings on the collar, but I don't have any information which will help me decode what we are seeing. Regards Paul

Hi Paul Brian Lavery's "Nelson's Navy" has a chapter on RM uniforms. Officers had to provide their own uniforms to a standard pattern based on that of the army, with blue facings from 1802. Lavery states that captains and subalterns wore a single epaulette on the right shoulder (as in your pictures) - however a few pages earlier there's a drawing showing captains having TWO! So it's difficult to know which is correct. From 1810, apparently captains had bullion fringes on the epaulette, whereas subalterns had plain fringes. Its difficult to say what these guys are wearing. Lavery doesn't mention collar decorations although I would have thought that they would be significant. The chap in the lower picture appears to have more decoration to his collar whereas his companion just seems to have a plain button. Sorry I can't be more definite. Perhaps an enquiry to www.royalmarinesmuseum.co.uk at Southsea (see enquiry forms on the web site) would get a positive identification? Cheers Piers -----Original Message----- From: mariners-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:mariners-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Paul Benyon Sent: 25 March 2011 15:00 To: Mariners List Subject: [MAR] Identifying Rank of Royal Marines Officers Trying to identify the ranks of 2 Royal Marines officers I've been sent 2 photos of portraits of what are thought to be Royal Marine officers, probably from the early decades of the19th Century, which can be seen at : http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/Temp/Temp.html#top ...... List member Jackie adds I have 2 photos of portraits taken of I believe, RMarines. Apparently they are not wearing their dress uniforms, but their dress down uniforms. .. I believe one is a first Lt and one is a second Lt. Should be grateful for any help. I would guess that the arrangement of the buttons down the front may give us some clues, along with the markings on the collar, but I don't have any information which will help me decode what we are seeing. Regards Paul ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to MARINERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message