At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Great Britain soon realized that a large number of men had to be recruited to supplement the existing standing army of 700,000, of which only 250,000 were regular soldiers. Although in August 1914 30,000 men were spontaneously volunteering each day, Secretary of State, Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, officially called for “New Armies”. Advertising was printed, much of it now iconic, and recruiting teams were sent to every town in the UK. The initial request for 100,000 was soon exceeded with 1,186,337 men being recruited by the end of 1914; henceforth these new formations were called “Kitchener’s Army”.
With over a million men volunteering in just four months there was an acute shortage of all types of equipment and kit. This included the rapid exhaustion of stocks of the standard 1902 pattern khaki tunic and trousers, the 1905 peaked forage cap, and the cloth to make them, together with
