Two drums with handmade butterfly
lugs resided for many years on the balcony of the Great Hall at Ombersley
Court. About 16 inches high and 22 inches in diameter (one a little smaller
than the other), the words written above the coat of arms on each are “2nd
Royal North. B. Dragoons”.
The drums were, by tradition,
carried at Waterloo. The 2nd Baron Sandys of Ombersley of the 2nd creation,
then Lord Arthur Hill, acted as one of Wellington’s ADCs in the battle: he was an
officer in the 21st Light Dragoons, which with the Royal North
British Dragoons was known as the Scots Greys. From 1832 to 1837 he was the
regiment’s Commanding Officer, and, from 1858 to his death two years later,
Hon. Colonel.
Recently, expert opinion has been sought
and received on the drums. Jeremy Montagu, Hon. Fellow of Wadham College,
Oxford and President of the Galpin Society, dates them “somewhere between 1790
and 1810, but the origin is still a mystery. I have a suspicion that… [they]
might have been spoils of war, possibly German, having been captured by the
French and then by the English, or French also captured.
“Somehow they don’t look English
despite them then being triumphantly painted with our Royal arms. While the
Greys… were certainly in the battle, would they have had their drum horse and
mounted band there at Waterloo?...
“The one thing against Germany is
the way the skin is attached; German style, the skin is usually the other way
up, but the heads might have been replaced in the UK, so that’s not much help!...
The two diagnostics that I have relied on are (a) the depth of shell and
verticality of the sides, which suggest the end of the eighteenth century, and (b)
the wing-nut tuning handles — T-handles came in around 1790, and before that
all drums… had plain square blocks for which a tuning key was necessary… The
earlier drums very seldom had such vertical sides as yours, above the curvature
of the bowls… The shape of the shells cannot be altered, so my inclination is
to stick to my original dating, unless any other details appear, for example
evidence of internal funnels round the soundhole...
“Most such drums come as a pair
with one slightly larger than the other so as to have a pitch difference
between them.”
Edwin Rutherford from The Royal
Scots Dragoon Museum in Edinburgh, Winfield Fellow of the US Embassy, has also commented
helpfully, having consulted Military expert Stephen Wood, first on the arms
that are painted on the drums. “The Royal Arms of England (NB not Scotland, or
at least not the Scottish version of the British Royal Arms) appear to be those
in use after 1837 (and still used). So even if the drums are earlier, the Arms
are not.”
He goes on: “What you can say for
certain is that the regimental title, lacking any reference to 'Scots Greys',
dates from before 1866 so I think that you can say that the decoration on the
drums dates [from the period] 1837-66.
“I am not sure when regiments of
dragoons adopted, or were allowed, kettledrums: they were originally and
traditionally (I think) only used by, or allowed to, regiments of Horse (and
subsequently Dragoon Guards), which is why the Household Cavalry use them today
on state occasions.
“They were certainly carried to and
used on the battlefield in the early 18th century, at least on the
continent, because there is a record of one of the Scots DG's antecedent
regiments capturing the kettledrums of an enemy regiment during the War of the
Spanish Succession... So I don't know if the Greys' band, assuming that the regiment
actually HAD a band, would have had kettledrums in 1815. If the regiment's
band, assuming there was one, did have kettledrums, I don't know if we know
whether or not the band, or any form of regimental musicians, went with the
Greys to Flanders in 1815. If it did, then I very much doubt if any elements of
the band would have gone to the battlefields of Quatre Bras and/or Waterloo; I
would have thought that it would have remained in Brussels - although of course
the trumpeters would have gone since the trumpet was used to convey orders in
the field. [Archivist’s note: The records indicate that one Greys’ trumpeter
was killed at Waterloo and another wounded.]
“I rather fear that it will not be possible
to substantiate the story attached to the drums… In any case, and this may not
be wholly irrelevant, military kettledrums, certainly by the mid-19th
century, were always draped in drum banners when in use and mounted on the
drum-horse and not painted in the way that these ones are. Whether they were
similarly draped when in dismounted use by the band, I don't know but I think
that I would expect it.”
Finally, a surmise by CJP: “Maybe
the drums (re)painted with the contemporary coat of arms, were given to the 2nd
Lord Sandys upon his retirement as Commanding Officer, and/or maybe the drums
were then replaced - indeed maybe he paid for new drums as a parting gift, and
kept the old ones.”
Does anyone have further thoughts?