Talk:Albert shako

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Kingsif (talk) 03:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

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• Article history

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Albert hat and shako

• ... that a hat designed by Prince Albert (pictured left) was altered into the Albert shako (pictured right), which was in use in the regular British Army for 11 years? "he [Albert] took an interest in military uniform and helped design a more functionalhead-dress, the 1844 pattern shako" from: Spielmann, Marion Harry (1895). The History of "Punch". Cassell and Company. p. 216. and " ALBERT SHAKO, 1844-55" from: Cattley, Alex. R. (1936). "The British Infantry Shako". Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research. 15 (60): 198. ISSN 0037-9700.
  • ALT1:... that the Albert hat proposed by Prince Albert for the British Army was mocked in the press and modified into a shako, (pictured right)?"The press were quick to note this news and the Illustrated London News of 21st October 1843 (the next day) wrote "The Proposed New Infantry Cap. This new pattern cap has been proposed for our infantry; but public opinion has been so unequivocally expressed against it, that it is not likely to prove a popular substitution for the cap now in wear. It is neither soldierlike nor appropriate" from:Carman, W. Y. (1978). "1722. The Albert Hat of 1843". Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research. 56 (227): 184. ISSN 0037-9700. and "the Albert Hat which Punch converted to his uses and worked to death" from: Spielmann, Marion Harry (1895). The History of "Punch". Cassell and Company. p. 216.

Albert shako

• • ALT2:... that the British Army's Albert shako (pictured) was liable to come off in action so the field of the Battle of Chillianwala was covered with fallen headgear?"n the first year of the war the troops wore the ' Albert ' shako , a rather tall , hard hat , with a good peak . But they were liable to fall off , and the field of Chillianwallah five years before had been littered with them after the battle" from: Daniell, David Scott (1951). Cap of Honour: The Story of the Gloucestershire Regiment (the 28th/61st Foot) 1694-1950. G.G. Harrap. p. 182.
  • ALT3:... that during the Crimean War Colonel George Bell complained about his "abominable Albert [shako]" (pictured) upon whose leather top "a man may fry his ration beef at mid-day in this climate"?"The next thing I want to pitch aside is the abominable Albert, * as it is called, whereon a man may fry his ration beef at mid-day in this climate, , the top being patent leather to attract a 10 fold more portion of the sun's rays to madden his brain" quoted in: Figes, Orlando (2 June 2011). Crimea. Penguin Books Limited. p. 271. ISBN 978-0-14-101350-3.

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Great blue turaco
• Comment: Top image for ALTs 0 and 1, bottom image for ALTs 1 and 2

Moved to mainspace by Dumelow (talk). Self-nominated at 07:00, 17 July 2021 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Expanded from 4,015 bytes to 18,915 bytes (or 463 words to 1,791 words). This isn't quite 5x... but it's also a new article... but the initial revision was split off from another article -- I'm not sure what the protocol is, but this seems like splitting hairs, especially when it's already been expanded so much. I don't think it would benefit the article to demand you bang out 300 words of unnecessary additional content to meet an arbitrary wordcount cutoff so I'm going to IAR and say this is fine.

As for hooks, I personally like ALT3 the best (by a lot), followed by ALT2, followed by ALT1. I think the nominator should choose which one they want to use, but the original is extremely boring. jp×g 08:24, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi jp, thanks for the review. Just to clarify: I split this article from a draft sandbox in my user page. None of this content has been in the mainspace before so it should be fine for the DYK rules. I am happy for any of the ALTs to be run - Dumelow (talk) 08:49, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I don't know how the hell I missed that. I guess I don't even have to break a rule to say this looks fine, then! jp×g 08:51, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Albert shako/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Dumelow (talk · contribs) 21:08, 5 October 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Hog Farm (talk · contribs) 18:08, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

Will review soon. Hog Farm _Talk 18:08, 25 October 2025 (UTC)

• For the image of the officers and the sergeant, I would suggest indicating which one is the sergeant - a concerning number of people I suspect would not recognize the chevrons as the indicator of rank

Done - Dumelow (talk) 07:08, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

• "The hat was mocked in a Punch cartoon and in October the Illustrated London News said "public opinion has been so unequivocally expressed against it, that it is not likely to prove a popular substitution for the cap now in wear"" and then separating out "The public response to the proposed shako was generally negative, it being considered similar to the caps worn by Hessians and other German soldiers since the 16th century." is a bit awkward. This gives the impression that the former reception is for the original hat design, while the latter is specifically for the shako. But the latter information is from the Illustrated London News article referenced in the former

Good catch, I think I originally wrote this article solely on the hat but then broadened it to cover the shako. This must have got caught up in that; I have removed this bit from the shako section - Dumelow (talk) 07:28, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

• "England), Society for Army Historical Research (London (1986). Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research. Society for Army Historical Research. p. 214." - something has gone wrong with this citation

The article has now come onto JSTOR so switched from Google Books preview to a proper journal citation - Dumelow (talk) 07:15, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

• Source reliability + images look okay

Spot checks

• "It was this continuous brim that made the headgear a hat, rather than a shako" - OK
• "the caps worn by Hessians and other German soldiers since the 16th century" - the quote in the source states that these hats were "discontinued long before the Reformation", which would indicate that the Germans had quit wearing such a hat centuries before Prince Albert

Now removed, per above - Dumelow (talk) 07:28, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

• "The officers' shako was made of black beaver skin on a felt base. " - OK
• "The other ranks' shako was the same as the officers' except that it was made of napped felt (and was therefore somewhat heavier) and the metal adornments were in brass rather than gilt." - pagination seems off. This should be p. 200 instead of p. 199, right?

Yes, I had named the ref as "cattley200" but carried over the pagination from "cattley199". Good spot! fixed - Dumelow (talk) 07:32, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the review Hog Farm, I think I have responded to each of your points - Dumelow (talk) 07:32, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.