Essex Volunteer Rifles, a very young volunteer

An unusual carte de visite by F. Spalding, Tindal Square, Chelmsford showing a boy wearing the uniform of the Essex Rifle Volunteers. The sword indicates the boy’s vey small height and I suspect is perhaps one of those photographs taken on the occasion of a wedding when a child is seen wearing the uniform of his father’s regiment when acting as a pageboy. We have had a photograph of Lord Roberts of Kandahar’s son at such an occasion at a wedding in northern India and have also seen a miniature Bengal Lancers uniform used on such an occasion.   The cdv has some spotting, particularly noticeable on the dark areas. This seems to have been in the negative or a fault in the printing. jan15/4