Larger version on Flickr

Jim Sinclair is the Executive Officer for State Records NSW. He is also a foundation member of “The Razor Gang”,  our newly formed fundraising team   for the World’s Greatest Shave 2013. This is a charitable event run on behalf of the Leukaemia Foundation. Watch this space for more information! (Editorial note: Go Jim, you’re a legend, we’re all behind you!!)

I have a long-term interest in part-time soldiering in Australia, as I have myself served as a part-time soldier since 1973. I like this image because it represents a forgotten period of part-time soldiering, the late 19^th century. After the withdrawal of British troops from the Australian colonies in 1870, the States and Colonies were responsible for providing their own military forces. The image shows Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) of what appears to be the 2^nd Battalion, NSW Infantry, in the latter years of the 19^th century, probably attending an Easter camp. The image is interesting as it shows a group of older men, all sporting beards and the pill box hats which were typical of this period. Even today part-time soldiers are usually older than their Regular Army counterparts. The NCOs are standing in front of a marquee tent, a style which, with minor modifications, remained in use by Australian Army Reserve units until the 1970s

 Other military records in our collection

• Additional military photographs from State Records collection can be viewed on Flickr
• Information about the military, war and related collections at State Records can be found on our specialist research page War and Australia (includes the Sudan, Boer War, World War I and World War II).
• The blog  A Land Fit For Heroes which is about the  Soldier Settlement Program (1916-1939) may also be of interest.

World War I Service Personnel Records

If you are interested in records about World War I Service Personnel then I can also highly recommend Tim Sheratt’s aggregated search engine which covers:

• service records held by the National Archives of Australia,

• the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial,

• the First World War Embarkation Roll at the Australian War Memorial,

• the Red Cross Missing and Wounded files at the Australian War Memorial,

• the Honours and Awards database at the Australian War Memorial and

• the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database .