Pre Union Awards
Overview
The awards program which started with the Ambulance award in 1888, started off with a certificate and cloth Ambulance badge issued by the Glasgow Battalion. As the award became adopted outside the Battalion, a HQ issue certificate and metal Ambulance badge became the standard. Other awards followed including Swimming, Scouting, Signalling, Life Saving, Band and Physical. Service awards, and an NCOs Proficiency certificate and Badge became requirements for the Kings Badge, introduced in 1913. At the Union with the Boys Life Brigade in 1926, the Awards programme was revised and together with design changes necessitated by the Union, additional badges were introduced together with a structured awards programme.
The Story in more detail – The late 1880s and the 1890s were times when the army wore an elaborate dress, khaki not yet being in regular use, and a wide range of badges. Metal badges with brooch or lug type fastenings were common, as were woven wire badges. In keeping with the BB modelling itself on the Volunteers, the various badges which began to appear were inspired by the army. Such badges as Drummer, Bugler, Signaller, Armourer, and Transport were worn on the sleeve, cuff or lapel of the jacket. Badges were not specially made for the Brigade. In fact, only one official, nationally approved proficiency badge was introduced by the BB in the 19th century. That badge, the Ambulance Badge, was introduced in 1891. During the early years of the 20th century many quite legal, locally approved badges were being worn. Little need was seen for new national introductions, but those badges which did exist needed to be regularised in terms of their design and award. Critics were starting to voice their opinions. In 1900, Mr P.D.Adams of London wrote a letter which was read out at the Annual Brigade Meeting and reported in the Gazette: ‘I strongly advocate a uniform system. A special sub-Committee should be appointed to draw up the best scheme of marking, and authorize a uniform system of Rewards and Badges, which should be inserted in the Manual, giving the Designs. Ambulance and Band badges are all far too easily obtained, far too frequently worn, and their value is consequently deteriorating.’
Both Efficiency and Sergeants’ Proficiency Badges did come into use in the early years, but these were not always truly national in character. Efficiency stars worn on the lower sleeve and sometimes on the lapel were only used by a few battalions between 1886 and 1904, Diamond-shaped Efficiency Badges, which were recognised nationally and introduced to replace the stars.
Starting in 1908 with the Bugler’s Badge, the Brigade authorities, who had begun to view the increasing diversity of badges with a degree of alarm, finally commenced the regulation of key proficiency awards. National standards were introduced for Signallers’, Scouts’, Band, Life-Saving, National Service, Gymnastics, Drummers’ and Pipers’. With certificates being awarded for Ambulance, NCO’s Proficiency, Scouts, Signallers and Swimming.
The King’s Badge which was instituted in 1913 combining both service and proficiency, necessitated further revision and standardisation of awards as recorded in the BB Gazette of October 1917:
The Executive have reviewed the conditions of award for the various Badges and Certificates for which Brigade Boys are eligible. It has long been felt that the necessary qualifications are in no way equal for all these awards, and that, while some necessitated considerable proficiency, others were too easily gained. With this in view, the following alterations and additions to regulations affecting the awarding of Certificates and Badges, as laid down in the manual, have been approved and come into force forthwith.
General.—Where any Battalion desires to standardise the passing of examinations for the awarding of N.C.O.’s Proficiency Certificate, Sergeants’ Proficiency Star, Ambulance Certificate and Badge, Signallers’ Certificate and Badge, Life-Saving Badge, Band Badge, Buglers’ Badge, Gymnastic Badge, Swimming Certificates, Scouts’ Certificate and Badge, they shall have the right to raise the necessary qualifications of any or all of the above, and, on their intimating to the Brigade Offices that they are undertaking the control of the issuing of any or all of these Badges or Certificates either by holding Battalion Examinations or by controlling Examinations held by Companies, no Companies within such Battalions will be entitled to order such Badges or Certificates from the Brigade Offices. The necessary qualifications for One Year’s Efficiency Badge, Three Years’ Service Anchor, the King’s Badge, and National Service Badge as laid down shall be unalterable by Battalions.
In the years leading up to union with the BLB in 1926 the basis of the awards system was firmly established, and structured both at a National level and at Battalion level. The Union with The Boys’ Life Brigade in 1926, which had a more advanced and varied awards system, saw the introduction of a number of new badges and awards to The Boys’ Brigade Awards program, which continued to be adapted and added to in a similar style up until 1968, when the scheme was modernised following the Haynes report of 1964.
