Just wondering when did the British army transition from the brightly coloured red coat uniform, to more camouflaged/ modern looking uniforms. I know that rifle regiments in the Napoleonic wars wore green uniforms, but when did this become more mainstream within the army?
Thanks in advance for any responses!
The first unit to use khaki uniforms appears to have been the Corps of Guides, a locally-recruited regiment on the North-West Frontier (modern Pakistan/Afghanistan). The collected letters of the second-in-command, William Hodson, describe how the soldiers first appeared in their normal garb of homespun white trousers and jerkin, but the commander Sir Harry Lumsden ordered some drab uniforms made by his tailor brother in London and sent out.
Meanwhile, the official tropical uniform of the British army was all-white, but once the Indian Mutiny kicked off in 1857 some units started dyeing their white uniforms with dirt or local plants to make themselves less easy to see - we're also just getting into the era when smokeless powder means that visibility on the battlefield is getting better and it's more important to hide from the enemy than to be visible to your comrades.
After being trialled in South Africa during the Second Boer War, the khaki was finally adopted throughout the British Army in 1902.