Hi Kevin and Ian,
This is a super figure that I would love to have.......if you find any Kevin.
I would agree that the badge on the cross belt looks like a Black Watch. My only doubt, and it may be just a sculpting error, is that there would normally have a Victoria Crown on the uppermost point of the star. Without the crown it could be a Royal Scots Officer but I am not sure that the bonnet would be correct for this regiment in the Crimea. I think that during this campaign they were known as 1st regiment of foot and would have most likely worn the 'Albert' shako.
For me, add a crown and call it Black Watch.
Cheers,
Keith
Hi,Keith:
I agree with you that this is a Black watch badge. So far as I can discover, though, this regiment differed from all those that had an eight-point star surmounted by a crown in that the crown is immediately above the motto on the oval, but immediately below the apex of the topmost point of the star, which as you know, is actually a four-point star with the four intermediate rays replaced by the St Andrew's saltire. I have some pix of officers' belt plates with this design in the MAA
Black Watch volume, p.7, and Wilkinson-Latham's
Scottish Military Uniforms, p.52, though both of these, while C19th, postdate the Crimea, and
Crimean Memories, sadly, does not have a belt plate from this reguiment. If there was indeed such a Crimean belt plate badge as you describe, and you have a picture of it, I would be very interested to see it.
Cheers,
Phil