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JAMES HAYES
it too could be brightened up pre-1914 in that, as Major Stewart writes 'shirts, boots and socks we provided ourselves. In the matter of shirts each man was free to follow his own individual choice, and thus a 'shirt-sleeves parade' provided a colourful and variegated spectacle',50
The First Schedule (Second and Third Appendices) to the 1920 Ordinance lists the uniform for officers and members respectively and for the first time kilts, sporrans, Balmoral caps and Highland garters appear in the list of items provided, in this case for a Scottish Company. This list is repeated in the 1933 Ordinance, again in the Second and Third Appendices to the First Schedule, only this time the kilts for the Scottish Company are specified as being "Gordon" instead of "khaki serge". It is also recorded that members of the Anzac Company were to be issued with a "Hat, Felt. Service dress..... 1". These items of equipment continued, more or less, until the outbreak of war in December 1941. Many photographs in the Year Books show the Corps' appearance at that time.
In accordance with this pattern of regulation, the 1948 Ordinance and the 1951 Ordinance continued to specify items of clothing whilst at all times, there have been instructions issued by Commanding Officers on the subject. As early as the 1882 Ordinance, it was stated (Section 30) that “special dress regulations will hereafter be issued". Unlike the other ranks, officers had to provide and maintain their own uniforms and appointments at their own expense until the 1920 Ordinance. This, for the first time, included an allowance to be paid to each officer on his first appointment as an officer in the Corps (Section 9(1) of the Volunteer Regulations of that year), since repeated in later Ordinances or Regulations.
(b) Weapons and Equipment
It is not intended here to give a recital of this important aspect of Volunteer history, but only to give a few facts from the middle period, by way of illustration. In the 1880s the batteries were equipped with 7 pounder RML guns and the machine gun company with Maxim machine guns which were the weapons
50 Vol, 1954, p. 54.