Off Topic Insignia ID help please. Military?

I would be grateful if (when they come down from the ceiling) someone might be able id this insignia or badge for me.

Looks military with the crown and that could be a latin motto and possibly a date around the circle. I think I make out an S, an A, and a C in the monogram.

Along with the possible military connection there is a likely to be a connection to engineering and/or motoring.

circa 1920's.

 

Looks like it...

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Just framing the question prompted looking up the royal engineers. After hours of squinting at the picture!

Any suggestions as to the monogram?

 

It is the Army Signal Corp Badge and the version you have is from 1914 to 1918. Yours appears to be stamped so whatever it was stamped on I assume was produced in that same year range and for that unit. There are a bunch of things with your version of the badge online all you have to do is search the old french moto and then do an image search and they will come up. The translation from old french is "Shame be to him who thinks evil of it".

here is a link to a few of your badges (the actual badge as opposed to a stamp of it) that someone found while metal detecting in Colchester.

http://www.colchestertreasurehunting.co.uk/militarybuttons.htm

 

Close Elly but I think it's actually the badge from the Army Service Core (ASC) from prior to the first world war when they received the Royal for services in the Great War. At that point the ASC was replaced with GIVR and Later EIIR for the relevant monarch. ASC were the only rear echalon support troops considered to be combat troops by the war office. They later become the Royal Core of Transport (RCT) or Rickshaws, Cabs and Taxis by other units. They're now part of the Royal Logistic Corps.

I believe the Siggies always had Mercury on their badge.
EDIT: I think that was just a typo by you Elly, right, as I just looked and your link correctly id'd it as a ASC badge.

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Your badge isn't square on the edges like his but I do think you are right and its Service and not Signal. But my date range is right because they changed the name in late 1918.

Here is a link to their history. http://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army...he-army-service-corps-in-the-first-world-war/

 

I agree and that threw my slightly but I think that was just to make the manufacture easier. You can make out the motto is Honi soit qui mal y pense which was the motto of the ASC (and is on the royal coat of arms around the garter).

The Signals motto is Certa Cito (Swift and Sure). Besides that the Army Signals Corps never existed, to my knowledge, as the Telegraph Battalion Royal Engineers became the Royal Engineers Signal Service before the Royal Signals Corps was formed in the interwar years.

http://www.royalsignalsmuseum.co.uk/cap-badge-history/

 

You missed my edit

 

Ah yes I did. We got there in the end LOL

 

My Granddad was a reservists in the ASC before the second world war out of Wenlock TA barracks on Anlaby Road in Hull. One the day war was declared they were mustered on Walton Street fairground and promptly mobilized.

He was initially sent to Belgium where according to him he was set to digging trench lines before they were told the Germans were already behind them and they should make their own way back to Dunkirk ASAP. When he got back he married the fiance of his dead best friend. My Nanny.

Next he was sent to North Africa where he was wounded twice. Once by a Stuka attack on the trucks and once by enemy fire as Tabrook was coming under siege. From there he was in Italy up until the battles for Monte Casino before being withdrawn back to England.

During the beat up training for D-Day an officer fell from one of the boats and he dived into save him. At which point two boats crashed together and my Granddad damaged his back. He received a mention in dispatches for this and the oak leaves.

He was medically downgraded at this point and never went back to France. He spent the remainder of the war guarding Brough airfield and the fuel dumps. I used to love talking to him about the war but it took quite a few drinks to get him going. He never lived to see me serve but I'd have like to compare our war experiences.

 

Very grateful for the replies, thank you.

The pre 1918 date is obviously of poignant significance.

There is also a well modeled lion on the item which in heraldic terms is "passant guardant", ie like the three on the royal coat of arms, horizontal and looking out.



I am surprised that the ASC would be using (or even be allowed to use) a single lion passant prior to the award of their royal warrant,

To make the motoring connection I mentioned earlier, I not that the RSC had numerous mechanical transport companies.

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My guess would be that this is linked to one of the commonwealth division of the Arny Service Corps, somewhere like Rhodesia.

It would probably only be used on something like a "Sam Browne" a belt and shoulder strap worn by comissioned officers.

It is not a cap badge and any divisional insignia on a uniform would be fabric.

 

What's the object Old Tige?

 

Interesting post. Makes you wonder what he and others like my dad who survived two torpedoings whilst in the Med would have thought of things today.
It never took anything to get my Grandpa talking about WW1, which he did far more than my dad did about WW2. I think what happened in WW1 where we lost far more soldiers burnt itself more into the consciousness of many of those involved in a way it didn't with many involved in WW2.
Talking of Dunkirk, the father of a friend in Hull was captured there and force marched to Poland. Only 16 out of 320 came back here. His admiration for the Poles who risked death by throwing bread over the barbed wire to them was boundless. To round off the story, in the 1970s his son was filling in a form for something when the person saw his surname and asked if his dad was ------. Turned out he was one of the others who survived. An emotional reunion was arranged.

 

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I think one of the differences was that when they came back from WWI it was to a society largely unchanged and 20 years later their sons were marching off to war. For the WWII veterans their was massive social change in the post war years and 20 years later their sons were enjoying the swinging 60s. There wasn't a real frame of reference in which to discuss it.

Mine would probably say you can get stuffed if you think I'm goin' outside for a smerk, while he tapped his pipe out on my smart phone

 

Nothing glamorous, but a very nice Jos Lucas No 40 Oiler.



Reputed, (by those selling them on ebay) to have been part of early Rolls and Bentley tool kits. That alone makes them quite desirable to some. This military connection might make it far more so. Especially when pinned so precisely to WW1.

Although I have found no evidence of the Rolls/Bentley tool kit tale.The Rolls connection is also hinted at by one which recently sold. It was stated to originate from the Rolls Royce Merlin Engines at the Derby Works. It's handle was stamped - "AERO TEST DEP".

I also notice from ASC history that they were among the forerunners of the RAF and operated both balloons and airplanes during WW1. IF they were already using RR engines at this time it would be another connection.

It is certainly far too grand and expensive to have been issued to any despatch rider. Although I believe Rolls cars were used as both staff cars and operational vehicles. However wiki tells me that the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) (of all people???) were given the initial task pf developing these armed limos.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Armoured_Car

So much will always remain speculation but I do enjoy trying to find out as much as I can about objects that pas through my hands.

 

The Army Service Corp, Royal Army Service Corps and Royal Corps of Transport supplied/ supply staff car drivers. Rolls Royce supplied staff cars as did other motor manufactures. light servicing would have been a duty of the driver.

It's a nice tactile piece.

 

The Armoured Car Mk1 built on the Silver shadow chassis did see service in WWI but I don't think the ASC would have had any armour. The badge seems to be ASC and as you (and Elwoods) say pre-1918 and post-1888 (quite a way post probably as it's an oil can).

My guess would be it's a WW1 era oil can for use by the Mechanical Transport Companies. Each ASC MT Company comprised 5 officers and 337 other ranks of the ASC, looking after 45 3-ton lorries, 16 30-cwt lorries, 7 motor cycles, 2 cars and 4 assorted trucks for the workshop and stores of the Supply Column itself.

Chances are it was used by the mechanics in the Company on any and all of those vehicles but I suppose the cars could have been Rollers and it came with those. [EDIT: Or as Omegaman said it could be the detached drivers]

I got the details of the company from here (which is the same site Ellwoods posted earlier):
http://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army...service-corps-mechanical-transport-companies/

 

Thanks again for all the input.

Apart from the one from the Derby works mentioned above, I can't find any reference to any other with an insignia, military or otherwise. But it looks too well done to have been a one off.

I shall continue my enquiries.

 

I was 14 in 1964and arguing with my dad about growing my hair. He must have thought of what he was doing 20'years previously and what they endured in the postwar years to see what his generation considered a bunch of unappreciative yobs with shoulder length hair and outrageous clothes with all the things they never had. Mods, who had never had to do National Service brawling in the seaside resorts.
He didn't say too much but towards the end of his days he was very disillusioned about the way things had gone and continued to with PC nonsense and all the rest of it. This from someone who in the post war years was a Labour Party activist, knocking on doors, distributing leaflets etc...

 

Im sure a lot of it is just the person as well. I turn 35 this year so to be talking about the same generation we are talking about my Grandparents. My Grandfather basically hid his service from my family. In like 2001 my aunt was going through my grandparents attic looking for photos when she found an old military footlocker. Inside was a uniform and a couple photos. After a bunch of demanding my Grandmother and Aunt got my Grandfather to admit that he had been in the army and had fought in Korea. He wouldnt talk about it and my Aunt contacted the army for info. The Army did a bunch of research about him because they said they had no record of him serving. Eventually they found records from a hospital ship that had him coming back from korea after being gut shot. Eventually they were able to piece together a basic story. He was in the 24th infantry division, 34th Regiment and had served from the beginning of the war. Out of the 1,898 men in his regiment only 184 had survived by the end of 1950. Because of the heavy casualties his unit was disbanded and put into the 5th Regimental Combat Team. Later in the war his platoon was caught behind enemy lines and almost all of them were killed again and the few guys that were left carried him back across friendly lines after being shot in the stomach by the Chinese. The Army said they thought that at most 3 men had survived counting my Grandfather from his original unit. Apparently shortly after my Grandfather was brought back a fire happened at some building where all the records were stored which is why he had no medals or anything like that. Because of the research they did they gave him his purple heart and combat infantry badge in 2005. He didnt want either of them but he went along with it and the ceremony because my family wanted him to. Right before he died he talked a bit about it all and told my dad that everyone he had ever been friends with had died in front of him and that no one should ever join the military, that war was something no one should see.

The dude I knew didnt care how people dressed, what religion they were or anything like that. He just wanted everyone to live and let live to use the saying. He wouldnt have cared how long your hair was or anything like that.