Victorian 2nd Volunteer Battalion Hampshire Regiment Officers Home Service Helmet, fine blue cloth bodied helmet with white metal officers Victorian crowned helmet plate with additional lower scroll ‘2ND VOLUNTEER BATTALION’, white metal rosette side bosses and velvet backed linked chinstrap. White metal cruciform spike base with rosette mounts and fluted officers spike. Interior with tan leather sweatband. Helmet shows some expected service wear.

Volunteer Officers Full Dress Bicorn Hat, black beaver skin bicorn hat with silver braid decoration and knotted ball. Small white feather plume. Interior with cream leather sweatband an white folded cloth lining having gilt tailors details of David Jones, Manchester. Generally good condition.

Victorian Rifle Brigade Officers Pill Box Cap, of dark green cloth with green mohair band and decoration to the crown. Leather sweatband and red leather liner to the crown with gilt tooled Cater & Co, Pall Mall, London retailers details. Housed in a japanned storage tin. Some light moth damage and no chinstrap.

Rare 1st Battalion Herefordshire Regiment Officers Home Service Helmet Attributed to Major, later Lt Colonel J R L Rankin, fine example of a blue cloth covered officers home service pattern helmet with rare officers gilt metal regimental helmet plate of universal pattern with centre having silvered arms of Herefordshire to centre and three part scroll with ‘1ST BN HEREFORDSHIRE REGT’. Velvet backed linked chin scales, rosette side bosses, spike base with rosette mounts and fluted officers spike. Interior of the helmet with tan leather sweatband an white lining. Name label to the underside of the sweatband. Carter & Co tailors label to the crown of the helmet. A very rare helmet plate and helmet to find as the regiment existed with full dress for a very short period of time, 1908-1914. R L Rankin 1st Herefordshire Rifle Volunteer Battalion. Formerly 2nd Lieutenant 5th October 1892 in the 1st Herefordshire (Hereford & Radnor) Rifle Volunteers. 1895 Lieutenant Rankin to be Captain. 1897 Captain Rankin to be Major. The 1910 army list shows him as the Major in the 1st Battalion The Herefordshire Regiment commissioned date 24th November 1897. The regiment was constituted as such in 1908. Rankin is shown to have experienced War Service in South Africa during the Boer War, being awarded the medal with three clasps. He passed various examinations proving his efficiency as for a Captain in the Reserve or Territorial Force. Still as such in June 1910 Army List. He succeeded to the Command of the Regiment in late 1910 but gave up the command in 1912. The November 1912 Army Lists show him as a Lieut-Colonel and a Military Member of the Hereford Territorial Association. ames Reginald Lea Rankin was born on 31st August 1871, succeeding his father James (a long term Conservative MP) as the 2nd Baronet in 1915. He was educated at Eton and at Corpus Christie College, Oxford. Barrister at the Inner Temple 1899. Was private secretary to the secretary of state for the Colonies 1903-04. Was a F.R.G.S.F Royal Historical Society. A JP and DL for Herefordshire and a JP for Gloucestershire. World War 1 1915, Volunteer Long Service Decoration and Coronation Medal (GVR). The Times newspaper War Correspondent in Morocco 1908 and with the Bulgarian forces in 1912. He married in 1896 the Hon. Nest Rice, second daughter of the 6th Lord Dynevor and had two sons. He died in 1931.