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The York Rangers, also known as the York Chasseurs, were one of a number of foreign corps raised for British service after the emigration from France during the revolution. The Rangers were light infantry, using traditional German jager equipment, and had an integral artillery company. They served in the Netherlands campaign before ending, with other foreign corps, in the West Indies in 1796.

These emigre units added variety to the uniform British forces. The York Rangers wore dark blue, faced dull yellow for infantry and red for artillery, with reversed colours for musicians. The style was similar to contemporary British light infantry uniforms, with some unusual features, notably the fox brush worn across the cap.

The basic dark blue uniform jacket had short tails, wings piped and fringed in white, and dull yellow standing collar, shoulder straps, lapels, turnbacks and pointed cuffs. The waistcoat was white. Dark blue trousers were worn with short black gaiters. The old-fashioned British sqle black light infantry cap was adorned with a green plume on the left, and a fox brush (redbrown with a white tip) worn over the crown from left to right; the cap's front plate was plain black or bore a star and scroll badge. Leather equipment was black, with a brass oval plate where the belts crossed. The traditional German rifle and sword were carried.

Musicians wore reversed colours, though the wings remained blue and had fringes alternating blue and white. Thq wore brown hussar colpacks, with a green plume tipped red at the front and the fox brush hanging on the right. Leatherwork was white.

The jacket also appeared in a single-breasted form witbout lapels, with very short front skirts and a round back, and the collar turned down. This was worn by the artillery, with their red facings on collar and cuffs, by some officers, and initially by musicians in reversed colours, dull yellow with dark blue facings. The musicians' jackets also had dark blue wiongs, as described above, and the short front skirts dark blue piped white.

Two uniforms of the York Rangers are illustrated by Christopher Warner in Philip Haythornthwaite's "Uniforms of the French Revolutionary Wars 1789-1802". Plate 27a depicts an infntryman, and 27b a musician in the angle-breasted jacket. The book offers a fascinating selection of uniforms from the transitional period between the 18th century and Napoleonic styles.

Unfortunately, such transitional styles are not well represented in ranges of wargame figures. I know of none suitable as York Rangers in 25mm or 15mm scales. The nearest for conversion would probably be British light company men of the American Revolution, wearing the coat with tails cut short, and the hat reduced to a cap.

Thanks also to Andrew Young for his reply and to W. Sawyer for citing Lawson's 'A History Of The Uniforms Of The British Army' Vol. 4 pp140-143 as an illustrated source for this unit.

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