Hi Allan, and welcome to the forum !!! I'm really glad you joined us here, and especially that you came in on this thread, which I have hoped would keep going as it seems an interesting subject which clearly brings up many applications of body armour in history.
You bring up another favorite topic in mentioning the very colorful pageantry of the British Indian cavalry during the Raj in India. The uniforms worn by the officers in these native regiments are fascinating, and these shoulder chains are one of the most intriguing elements. It seems these were copied from Indian cavalry and became the vestigial items on uniforms from about 1880's until about the 1930's. These British cavalry uniforms are incredibly collectible, and as far as I recall, the regiments most commonly associated with the chains were Bengal units.
When I first began this thread, I sought to discover what likelihood there was that gunfighters in America's wild west might have ever worn any type of bulletproof vest or such protection.
In recent reading there are references to the effectiveness of silk in protection from projectiles, and according to some sources, even bullets.
In images of many of the gunfighters, accurate or not, as well as of gamblers, who would seem to have also needed protection in most cases, an item of clothing popular was the vest, and often it seems made of silk.
My thoughts of course were that perhaps some of these individuals might have sought to acquire these silk vests not only for flamboyance, but for such protection as well.
I was even more intrigued when I discovered that a doctor, from Tombstone of all places, had found that a gunshot victim who had apparantly had a silk handkerchief located at the site of his wounds, and the bullets had failed to penetrate the silk. In this case, the wounds were fatal, but the doctor, George Emery Goodfellow, saw the potential in the silk for protective use.
He apparantly published a paper titled "Notes on the Inpentratibility of Silk to Bullets", however its date and publication seem unclear.
Some sources say 1881, some say in Southern California in 1887. It would seem either case would have been too late for Wyatt Earp or any of the participants at OK Corral on October 26, 1881, to have had any vests of silk.
It has also been shown that a Chicago clergyman Rev. Casamir Zeglen had researched producing these further, and they were unbelievably expensive. The one owner of such a silk vest was Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, who was wearing it June 28,1914....unfortunately his assassin hit him in the neck, above the vest.
Regardless of these notable instances, the use of silk as protective clothing goes back to the Mongols, and one wonders if even the suggestion of such potential might have prompted such extravagance beyond flamboyance.
All best regards,
Jim
|