Chapka, Brigade Surgeon Edmond Hoile, 17th Lancers, 1872 (oil cloth)

Chapka, Brigade Surgeon Edmond Hoile, 17th Lancers, 1872. This chapka has a black oil cloth covering for foul weather conditions. Gilt chin chain with bosses with the Regiment’s Death’s Head. The chapka, or lance cap, was an item of headdress originally worn by Polish lancer regiments. British forces encountered Polish lancers in French service during the Napoleonic Wars. The British Army’s lancer regiments, formed after the Waterloo campaign, subsequently adopted the chapka. The 17th Lancers, ‘The Death or Glory Boys’, took part in the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaklava in 1854, during the Crimean War (1854-1856). Brigade Surgeon Hoile served in the Army Medical Department from 1858 to 1883, and was attached to the 17th Lancers from 1871 to 1873.