New Made Item: By 1812, the stovepipe shako had become the ugly stepchild.  Britain’s contact with other European armies, both allies and enemies, highlighted the lacklustre visual appeal of the cap.  Other nations had caps festooned with cords and tassels and seemed to dramatize the height of the soldier to greater advantage.  In the final analysis, Britain adopted a cap closely patterned after the Portuguese “barretina” design.  Ironically, at the same time the English were adding cords to their headwear, the French were abolishing them. As usual, no improvement in protection to the head was made by the design change.

The new British cap retained several features from the old stovepipe design.  The body of the hat was still made from stiffened blocked wool felt. Inside, the linen cap bag was stitched at the edge to the thin leather band that transitioned from the outside to the inside of the cap at the bottom edge. The company affiliation was still denoted by the coloured worsted tufts: white over red for Battalion companies, green for the Light company and white for the Grenadier company.  At the base of the tuft there was still the black tooled leather Hanoverian cockade with regimental button.  However, the placement of the tuft and cockade had been moved to the left side of the hat to make way for the false front.  The body of the new design was about six and one half inches tall, but across the front of the cap was an eight and a quarter inch high tombstone shaped piece of felt.  It was bound in black worsted tape and bore a brass plate in the shape of a crowned baroque shield.  On the shield was the regimental number or name of the unit.  Running from the base of the plume across the front of the cap under the plate and terminating on the right side were worsted cords.  Grenadiers and Battalion men had white cords, but Light companies often preferred green.  The Light companies in 1814 were ordered to wear a bugle badge and regimental number in place of the baroque plate.

A top quality 1812 pattern English infantry soldier’s cap as worn by the majority of British foot-soldiers at the Battle of Waterloo. Often referred to as the Belgic shako, these were a short-lived design. The shakos bear a brass plate in front which has a crown and “GR” cipher, the royal symbol of Britain’s King George III (in Latin, “rex” means “king”). A japanned leather peak complete the cap. The white cord and tassels complement the caps well connected to a cockade on the left side.

This is a very limited production run that will not be repeated. This is one of the most iconic pieces of British headgear from the Napoleonic era. Buy now or regret it later.

The Belgic shako proved to be a very short-lived design.  It was replaced by a totally new style in 1816.  Due to the two year life expectancy of shakos, there were some regiments that still hadn’t received the 1812 model by the time of Waterloo.  The 28th Foot was known to still be wearing the stovepipe with the plate cut apart to make a unique design.  There is also some belief that the Rifles and Light Infantry regiments eventually wore the Belgic cap, but the date of changeover is unclear.

“Shako” and “Belgic” are later terms, not because this style originated in Belgium (the Portuguese marines were actually the first to wear it in 1797) but because the new caps were worn by British infantry at Waterloo. At the time, though, they were christened “Bang Ups” because they were “bang up to date”.