Sleeve badge: Royal Artillery Cadet

Cadets embroidered sleeve badge (left hand). The badge is a wreath embroidered in brown and fawn on khaki woollen cloth. Between the arms of the wreath at the top, there is a padded Imperial crown. In the centre is a cannon in left profile, above 'CADET'.

This badge forms a pair with REL/00022.001, and was in the collection of Sir Patrick Gordon Taylor.

In Britain the badges were used solely by officer cadets of the Royal Military Academy (RMA) which is home of of the Royal Artillery. Cadets attended several years of instruction at the school before graduating into the Royal Artillery. A system of unique rank badges was used to distinguish the students, similar to that used at the West Point Academy of the US Army. How the badges came to be in Taylor's possession is not known. He received his first military training as a cadet at The Armidale School. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant on 4 May 1914. In 1915 he was appointed temporary Lieutenant in the 26 Battalion CMF, replacing a lieutenant who had joined the AIF. He was keen to be on active service too but was rejected by the AIF, so he travelled to England at his own expense to join the RFC.