Original Items. Only One Lot of Three Available. The 1908 pattern web infantry equipment was an innovative type of webbing equipment adopted by the British Army before World War I. The 1908 equipment, when fully assembled, formed a single piece, and could be put on or taken off like a jacket. Ammunition was stored in two sets of pouches attached to the belt at the front, and the straps from these passed over the shoulders, crossing diagonally at the back. The large pack, or "valise", or the haversack could be attached to these diagonal straps, thus spreading their weight.

This is a lovely lot of three P-08 Pattern Webbing belts for the P-08 Webbing equipment set. These all came out of an extensive Commonwealth WWI collection, and all three are of WWI manufacture. Two of the belts are void of stamps, and the third has a Broad Arrow stamp over 639 next to a large M. One of the unmarked examples does have a name, J. CAIN, along with other very faded markings, but the other is unmarked.

A fantastic lot of three WWI P-08 Web belts, ready for further research and display!

During the Second Boer War of 1899–1902, the standard British Army set of personal equipment, comprising a belt, haversack and ammunition pouches, was the leather Slade–Wallace equipment, which had been introduced in 1888. It proved unsuitable for holding modern ammunition, which was carried in stripper clips instead of as individual rounds, and its buffalo-hide leather tended to deteriorate during long periods in the field. A review of British shortcomings during the war was conducted by the 1903 Royal Commission on the War in South Africa, which heard evidence that the Slade–Wallace equipment was "an absurdity" and "cumbersome, heavy and badly balanced". As a stop-gap measure, the leather 1903 Bandolier Equipment, based on that used by the Boer Commandos, was issued, but it quickly proved to be unsuitable for infantry use.

In 1906, Major Arnold R. Burrowes of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, working with the Mills Equipment Company, presented a design for a new set of equipment. Mills' American parent company had previously produced woven cotton webbing equipment for the US Army, but no European army had yet adopted it. The new Mills-Burrowes equipment, initially known as "the Aldershot design", was presented to a committee chaired by the Surgeon-General, which in turn recommended trials at home and abroad. Following the success of these trials, the webbing equipment was accepted by the Army Council in December 1907.