Archive
Regal’s latest offering is a six piece set depicting the Greytown School Cadets, 1904.
The Greytown School Cadets were first formed in 1881 and disbanded in 1893. Revived by 1899 the headmaster H.A. Parkinson had procured three dozen of the model rifles for use by the boys in their physical drill. In 1902 Captain Parkinson added four miniature Martini-Henry Rifles of·.31 calibre for live firing practice to the school’s arsenal. The Defence Act of 1909 abolished both the Public School Cadets and High School Cadets and resulted in the creation of the Junior Cadets and the Senior Cadets but in 1912 the Junior Cadets were in turn abolished and so ended the Greytown School Cadets.
Regal’s new, solid pewter, six-piece set of the Greytown School Cadets, 1904, features an officer, sergeant, bugler and three cadets standing at attention. An add-on set of six cadets is also available. The Greytown Public School Cadets are wearing the uniform suggested by the government of a blue jersey, blue knickerbockers and stockings with a Glengarry cap with diced border adopted throughout New Zealand, often with the addition of an Eaton collar. They are equipped with the model (dummy) rifles of which nearly 15,000 were eventually imported from England by the New Zealand Government, including the pouches issued in 1904 to hold the percussion caps for fire discipline training.
The latest Regal release is a Staff Nurse of the New Zealand Army Nursing Service. About 640 New Zealand nurses served overseas during the First World War with 550 of them in the NZANS. Formed in early 1915, the first group of 50 NZANS nurses departed New Zealand on 8 April 1915 to join the NZ Expeditionary Force. During the course of the war the members of the NZANS saw service aboard hospital ships and hospitals in Egypt, Salonika, France and England. Ten NZANS nurses lost their lives when HMT Marquette was torpedoed off the coast of Salonika on 23 October 1915.
