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John
The pic of the Irish Squadron of RH is taken from Chapter 15 page 354 of Vol. I of "With The Flag to Pretoria". For your viewing pleasure, I attach an illustration of Robert's Horse in action at Kitchener's Kop, near Poplar Grove, 9th March 1900. The men are wearing helmets with some sort of dark colored plume tucked into the LHS of the helmet pagri. If you wish to examine this illustration more closely, see Chapter 13 page 536 of Vol. 2 of the same work.
My opinion, based on what I have seen depicted, is that RH wore normal helmets with some distinguishing mark in the more formal stage of the campaign and more likely wore the slouch hat later.

I have to explain the skewed orientation of this latest illustration: caused by my reluctance to bend the spine of a rather fragile book.
Regards
IL.

Three more photos to give an impression. These were labelled SALH, though could possibly be Roberts' Horse. As is common among South African mounted infantry units generally, you'll note variation in tunic and breeches, boots/puttees, rifles/carbines, bandoliers, hat styles/hat bands etc. In the central photo I see a Lee Enfield cavalry carbine, long Lee Enfields, and a variety of Boer and British bandoliers.

Not sure if this is genuine ... I stopped buying cut-out sheet brass badges a while back as there are too many fakes/repros out there.



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IL,

Interesting artwork, it also shows a dark flash with cap badge of some kind on the right side. Thank you for sharing that. i have had trouble finding anything on Kitchener's Kop during March 1900. There are accounts of Kitchener's Kop in April along with Kitchener's Horse. I am begining to lean towards your view on the helmets seen in the early campaign of 1900.

Rob D,

Thanks for those photos!

Neville_C

This is the version I found on a auction site through google images. I am also curious what versions are correct or if a time period of each could be determined.

V/R
John

John
A little more about the locally raised mounted troops and their headwear in early to mid 1900.
An amusing anecdote concerning battlefield confusion in the aftermath of the action at Belmont may be found on p.33 of that excellent work "With Rimington" by L. March Phillips. Rimington's Guides and March Phillips were involved in recapturing a herd of cattle (lately in Boer hands) and conveying them to the rear:
" From a group of Staff officers, a boy came across the veldt to me and presently I heard, as I was shooing on my bullocks, a very dejected voice explain 'How confoundedly disappointing'. I looked around and saw a lad gazing ruefully at me, with a new revolver tied to a bright yellow lanyard ready in his hand. 'I thought you were a Boer' he said 'and I was going to shoot you. I've got leave to shoot you ' he added as though he was in two minds about doing the job anyway ........ and then, still ruefully, he rode away. This was right up our end of the valley and I was driving the cattle onto our ground, ONLY I HAD A SOFT HAT ON" (my emphasis).
Perhaps it was due to incidents such as the above that RGs adopted the leopard skin hat bands as a quick ID?
More evidence regarding the official avoidance of wearing confusing headgear may be found on the website of the ANZAC Memorial (Sydney, NSW). It tells us that the 1st NSWMR arrived in SA wearing slouch hats - but in Jan/Feb 1900, the Field Force Commanders decided they may be mistaken for Boers and they were reissued with FS helmets. There is a well known sketch by Norman Harvey showing 1NSWMR in action at the Vet River (5/5/1900) wearing FS helmets with a large stylised A on the LHS of their headgear.
I realise that the above is seemingly a bit removed from the thrust of your initial query about the uniforms of Robert's Horse. However, it appears that the wearing of FS helmets by many locally recruited and oversea Colonial mounted units was rather widespread in the formal stages of the SA Campaign.
Regards
IL.