British Napoleonic trousers

Babelfish · Feb 12, 2020

Taking a (for me) rare foray into Napoleonics.

Question: Can I get away with buff / light brown trousers on this guy?

STORMTROOPERS - British Infantry Officer 1808-15 (120mm).jpg

According to the reference below, trousers were "white or brown" but I would imagine that "brown" covers a multitude of sins just like "field grey" does for WWII Germans.

https://balagan.info/peninsular-war-painting-guide-british-foot

I'm not a slave to absolute "historical accuracy" but I like to be there or thereabouts if possible.

Appreciate any pointers!

- Steve

JonH · Feb 12, 2020

The British Peninsular army had poor resupply chains and worn out uniform was often replaced using local cloth.Trousers in particular were often manufactured in Portuguese brown cloth but I wouldn't expect the tailored look of the trews this chap's wearing.
Jon.

fogie · Feb 12, 2020

No definitive answer to this, Steve. It depends basically on whether the figure is an Officer or otherwise.
Officers' clothing is more likely to be of a much higher quality in both material and colour than that of
the 'vile soldiery' which would have been much more inferior.

Throughout the 18th century and beyond, the material used for other ranks uniforms was common broadcloth.
It was is a dense, plain woven cloth, historically made of short staple wool, so named because it was woven on a
broad loom to produce cloth five feet wide which was then heavily milled to shrink it to something like around two
thirds of that width. The individual fibres of the wool were bound together in a sort of felting process, resulting in a
dense, stiff, and blind ( the weave is invisible) cloth, highly weather resistant, hard wearing and capable of taking a
cut edge without the need for a hem. It weighed 16 ounces per square yard. Brown dyes were created traditionally
with walnut husks and produced anything from a rich yellowish brown to an umber dye that did not require a
mordant to fix the colour. Walnuts had been cultivated widely in Britain since Roman times, and walnut trees were
common across the whole western part of the Roman Empire, particularly in Spain and Gaul. By the time of the
Napoleonic wars brown was a common choice for local military uniforms across the Spanish Peninsular.

It seems more likely that the Officer class equipped themselves with smarter, more comfortable, and more costly
white dyed worsted.

Hope this helps and is not too boring.

Mike