What you will find recorded and where to find it...

Whilst there are a large number of publications covering regular military buttons from 1860 onwards there is very little published on the earlier buttons that cover the Militias, Rifle Volunteers, Yeomanry Cavalry, Fencibles, Volunteer Artillery,  Local Militias and of course the Irish Militias.

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The object of this site is to try and correct this and provide an insight into this 'missing' part of our history and also allow a place where newly discovered buttons can be recorded and identified thus ensuring the knowledge via new discoveries is not lost.

 

To try and aid identification we have listed the buttons alphabetically, so if you have a monogram style button or place name then start by looking at the first two letters on it. There are from these early days of limited regulation many oddities, so some units that call themselves for example 'Royal' may not have actually been granted that title so again do check second letters.

 

We have used the format as per the Army lists. e.g, Argyllshire (Eastern) Battalion, comes under 'A', but East Retford for example would be under 'E'.

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'Loyal' and 'Royal' in the case of Volunteers come under the town/city/area initial. Also many county Militias used the 'Royal' title but we have stuck to the county initial, so a monogrammed button with the letters RLRV would be under L for Liverpool, so in these cases do check both the first letters.

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As the site evolves it is our intention to make the listings searchable by county as well but for now we are concentrating on uploading the vast number of buttons that are known to us which in itself is a huge task and one that will take many years of effort.

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If you have found a button that is not recorded here and would like to see it included we would love to hear from you.

 

 

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