Page 71 - QDG Year of 2020

1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards
69
Without scroll
since the helmet itself was imprinted with KDG on the inside rim. But it had the Hapsburg eagle instead of the KDG helmet plate. He kindly donated it and it is now on display in the museum. (Another casualty of those artefacts stolen from the Regiment?)
A cast was made from the original with male and female die, enabling us to make six new helmet plates, so that the trumpeters can carry on this tradition.
We have also been busy with our resto- ration programme. Having completed the restoration of Bringhurst and The Charge of the King’s Dragoon Guards at La Haye Sainte by Peter Archer, we have two other paintings being restored professionally by Valentine Walsh.
This unknown portrait of a KDG officer has been completed.
The portrait of George, Lord Carpenter, 2nd Dragoon Guards (The Queen’s Bays), 1692-1704 is a work in progress. An inscription on the painting says it was painted in 1731, but there is no signa- ture.
George Carpenter Commanded Third
Regiment of Horse (The Queen’s Bays) 1692-1704. He went on to serve under Marlborough at Ramillies and Oude- naarde during the Wars of the Spanish Succession and played a leading role in the suppression of the Jacobites at Preston Moor in 1715.
The painting was presented by Major D F MacCallan who served in The Queen’s Bays 1940-1958. He was a contempo- rary of Gen Sir Jack Harman, GCB, OBE, MC, Colonel of the Regiment from 1975 to 1980.
Major MacCallan was 2i/c B Squadron during the attack on the Gothic Line in 1944, the last German defensive line in the Apennine Hills in Northern Italy. He led two troops in the attack on Montiano Ridge, successfully capturing it, crossed the Rubicon and then drove on to capture Casale. The Germans never recovered from the breach of this defen- sive position.
After leaving the Regiment, Major MacCallan became a Director of BP.
The Bays participation in the campaign has been written up in ‘To War with the
Scroll in progress
Final version
Bays: A tank gunner remembers’ written by Jack Merewood and can be bought from the Regimental shop.
The next major restoration project focuses on all the watercolours in the collection, many of which are in Swanton Morley. New framing techniques have identified the need to ensure that any backing to these pictures is acid free, preventing corrosion of the pictures. They will also be reframed with UV glass to prevent deterioration from sunlight.
This valuable work is part of a major programme to protect and manage our collection so that it will be in pristine condition for future generations of the Regiment.