Officer's patrol jacket : Victorian Volunteer Rifles

Dark blue superfine patrol style jacket with stand collar. Collar, fronts, skirt edge and side vents all trimmed with 2.6cm wide black wool worsted braid. Dark blue shoulder straps trimmed with narrower wool braid and decorated with two enamelled gilt stars for the rank of captain and a black netted cap button. Cuffs are decorated with black plaited wool braid Austrian knots. Fronts decorated with four slightly tapered rows of plaited, double black worsted braid ending in two drops with two eyes in the centre of each row. The rows end in loops on the left side and netted olivets on the right. The jacket also fastens beneath, with a series of ferrous metal hooks and eyes. To the sides of the last row of braided decoration on each front is a slanted welt pocket lined with grey cotton twill. The back seams are decorated with double rows of black plaited braid, beginning and ending in a crowsfoot with two pairs of eyes between. The side vents of the jacket have a metal hook and eye fastening part way up the vent. The jacket and collar are lined with a black wool and cotton mixture of satin weave, padded at the chest and sides. A concealed pocket inside the left breast lining is lined with glazed grey cotton twill. Stitched to the collar lining, at left edge, is a tab of the same lining fabric which fastens through a loop of worsted braid stitched to the right edge. Sleeves lined with a fine plain weave cotton. The initials 'RA' written in ink at the left sleeve armhole.

Patrol jackets were worn by officers of both artillery and rifles units when attending activities such as encampments. This jacket is reputed to have been worn by a member of the Victorian Volunteer Rifles, Captain R Allen, although this is yet to be established. The rank indicated on the shoulder straps dates this jacket from the 1880s. Before this the rank was denoted on the collar.