^Lot 29 #29 WW1 PPCLI Officers cap badge

Up for auction is a World War One Canadian Officers Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) marguerite cap badge in great condition. The badge has a nice silver patina with worn gilt colouring in center marguerite and Kings Crown. The badge retains sharp detailing detailing on voided design. The badge has a marguerite in center, with "Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry" on surrounding scroll below the Kings Crown. The reverse is of solid construction with a silver patina, complete with both pin and fastener in working condition, and unmarked.
A excellent World War One P.P.C.L.I. cap badge for your collection consideration.
Some History on the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (P.P.C.L.I.) during WW1:
At the outbreak of World War I, when Canada was lacking regular military forces, the then-Captain Andrew Hamilton Gault raised the Patricias. Hamilton Gault offered $100,000 (equivalent to $2,283,333 in 2020) to finance and equip a battalion to participate in the Canadian war effort overseas. The government temporarily accepted his offer on August 6, 1914, and officially authorized it on August 10. The Department of Militia and Defence contributed to the equipment of the unit. The charter of the regiment was signed on August 10, and the Governor General of Canada, The Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, approved the creation of the regiment.
Lieutenant-Colonel Francis D. Farquhar was instrumental in assisting Hamilton Gault in founding the regiment. Colonel Farquhar, Military Secretary to Canada's Governor General, asked the Duke of Connaught for permission to name the regiment after his daughter, Princess Patricia of Connaught. She was pleased to accept this honour and thus the Princess Patricia's were established. "Light Infantry" in the battalion name was chosen by Captain Gault, who served during the Second Boer War and liked the impression of an irregular force that the name inspired.
Farquhar and Gault moved expeditiously to mobilize the regiment. The day after authority was granted, August 11, the two men began an aggressive recruitment campaign. Due to the patriotic outpouring following the August 4 declaration of war, 3,000 applicants were recruited within eight days. By August 19 a full complement of 1,098 had been selected, of those, 1,049 had previously served in South Africa or in the British Army. Farquhar became the first commander of the battalion. The regiment's first formal parade was conducted on August 23 in Ottawa, during which Princess Patricia presented the regimental standard. Princess Patricia, Colonel-in-Chief, designed and made by hand the regimental flag to be presented on that occasion. It is a crimson flag with a circular royal blue centre. In the circle are gold initials "V P", which stands for Victoria Patricia. The regimental standard became known as the "Ric-A-Dam-Doo". This flag was carried in every regimental action during World War I. It was not officially adopted as a regimental colour and consecrated as such until after the First World War.
The regiment left Ottawa on August 28 and boarded the SS Megantic in Montreal, Quebec. However, because of enemy action in the Atlantic Ocean, the regiment had to deboard at Lévis, Quebec. During the period of training at Lévis, following extensive tests on the Ross rifle, the Patricias issued the first of what would be many damning reports of the suitability of the Ross rifle for combat. The regiment finally left on September 27 from Quebec City on board the Royal George for England in company with the rest of the first Canadian contingent.
Upon arrival at their camp on the Salisbury Plain, England on October 18 the regiment was first stationed at Bustard Camp near Stonehenge. On November 16 the unit joined the 80th Brigade of the British Expeditionary Force at Winchester. At that time the regiment abandoned the troubled Ross rifle in favour of the British Lee–Enfield. On 20 December, the regiment departed for the port of Southampton with the rest of the brigade and embarked for France arriving the next day. On this date the PPCLI was the only Canadian infantry unit on the battlefield; only the 1st Canadian Medical Corps was there before.
The Patricias first took their place in the trenches on January 6, 1915, at a location known to the British Army's soldiers as "Dickiebush".
On May 8, the stout defence of Bellewaerde Ridge during the Battle of Frezenberg established the reputation of the Patricias but at tremendous cost. When they came out of the line the 700 men that had started the battle had been reduced to just 150 who were battle ready. The tattered remains were commanded by a lieutenant, all other officers having been killed or wounded. The phrase "holding up the whole damn line" became one of unit's unofficial mottos for the regiment.
The PPCLI served for a year with the 80th Brigade before joining the new 7th Brigade within the 3rd Canadian Division on December 22. In 1916 the regiment fought major battles at Mount Sorrel and on the Somme. It was not until October 1916 that the first Canadian, Lieutenant-Colonel Agar Adamson, was appointed to command the regiment. In 1917 as part of the Canadian Corps, the regiment took part in the Battle of Vimy Ridge on April 9, and Passchendaele later the same year. In 1918 the regiment fought at the Battle of Amiens, Jigsaw Wood, and the Battle of the Canal du Nord as part of the great battles of the Hundred Days that ended the war. The 4th Company PPCLI entered Mons with other Canadian troops early on November 11, before the armistice took effect at 11 am.
During the Battle of Passchendaele Sergeant George Harry Mullin earned the Victoria Cross, the highest honor in the British Empire. Sergeant Robert Spall won the regiment's second Victoria Cross at Parvilliers on August 12 and 13, 1918.
A former Patricia, Lieutenant Hugh McKenzie, who had risen from private to company sargeant-major before accepting his commission and transferring to the Canadian Machine Gun Corps, was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously for his actions during Passchendaele. He had already won the Empire's second-highest award for gallantry, the Distinguished Conduct Medal, while serving with the regiment as well as the French Croix de Guerre. On 30 October 1917, he was a member of the 7th Canadian Machine Gun Company, Canadian Machine Gun Corps, leading a section of four machine guns in support of the regiment. Seeing that one of the PPCLI companies was hesitating to advance in the face of a German machine gun position on dominating ground, he handed command of his troops to an NCO and went to rally the men of his old regiment. McKenzie organized an attack and captured the enemy position. Once on the position, however, he realized that it was itself under dominating enemy machine gun fire from a nearby pillbox. McKenzie organized parties to capture the pillbox by making both frontal and flanking attacks. He was killed while leading the frontal attack. When the awarded of his Victoria Cross was announced in the London Gazette on 12 February 1918, his surname was misspelled as "Mackenzie.
On February 4, 1915, Private Guy Dwyer became the Patricias' first combat casualty of the war The last of the Patricias killed in action was likely Corporal Percy Wainwright Carleton on 10 November 1918. In total 1,272 officers and enlisted men of the Patricias were killed and 82 officers and enlisted men were captured during the war.